3. Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962

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Although it may not be widely known, the Cuban Missile Crisis was exacerbated by a number of mishaps that occurred as the nuclear drama between the United States and the Soviet Union was playing itself out. Among them were a Soviet satellite that entered orbit and unexpectedly exploded, a bear climbing a security fence at a missile base causing an intruder alert, a U.S. missile launch test that was not known to a number of vital radar stations, an error by radar operators that declared that the U.S. was under attack with a missile was due to strike near Tampa, Florida, and operators at a new radar site in Texas who mistook an orbiting satellite as two missiles over Georgia. The Cuban Missile Crisis is as close as the world has come to an all-out nuclear conflict. At least as far as we know!