1978: NOAA announces gender-neutral hurricane naming system
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The Bay of Pigs invasion began when a CIA-financed and -trained group of Cuban refugees landed in Cuba attempting to topple the communist government of Fidel Castro. Castro had been a concern to U.S. policymakers since he seized power in January 1959. His attacks on U.S. companies in Cuba, inflammatory anti-American rhetoric and Cuba’s movement toward a closer relationship with the Soviet Union led U.S. officials to consider him a threat to US interests in the Western Hemisphere. President John F. Kennedy inherited the training program from Dwight Eisenhower in 1961. On April 17, 1961, around 1,200 armed exiles waded ashore at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, hoping to be a rallying point for the Cuban citizenry to overthrow Castro’s government. Instead, the landing force met with unexpectedly rapid counterattacks from Castro’s military, and the Cuban leader used the incident to request additional Soviet military aid – including missiles. This sparked the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962.
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