The Bay of Pigs Invasion

What happened

After Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution aligned Cuba with the Soviet Union, the United States backed an invasion by CIA-trained Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs. The landing was quickly crushed by Castro's forces — a humiliating failure for the new Kennedy administration.

Why it matters

The fiasco pushed Cuba closer to the Soviet Union and helped set the stage for the Cuban Missile Crisis the following year.

Sources

• Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. The Bay of Pigs Invasion, 1961 · Reputable source