Today in History, October 22nd

On October 22, 1962, President Kennedy told the nation about Soviet missiles in Cuba and announced a naval quarantine.

By Today in History Updated November 10, 2026 3 min read Sources checked

Published October 22, 2026 · Last updated November 10, 2026

October 22 is best known as the night in 1962 when President John F. Kennedy told the nation on television that the Soviet Union was building nuclear missile bases in Cuba. The date also saw Jean-Paul Sartre turn down the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964 and India launch its first Moon probe in 2008.

The big story: Kennedy Reveals the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)

For a week, Kennedy and a small circle of advisers had known something the public did not. U-2 spy-plane photos showed Soviet missile sites going up in Cuba. On the night of October 22, 1962, the president went on television and told Americans. The sites were close to finished, he said, and could hit many major U.S. cities, including Washington. He called the Soviet move reckless and announced a naval “quarantine” of Cuba to stop shipments of offensive weapons. He also made clear the U.S. was ready to use force if needed. Then the country waited. The quarantine began the next day, U.S. forces moved to DEFCON 2, and on October 27 a U-2 pilot, Major Rudolf Anderson, was shot down and killed over Cuba. On October 28, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles. In return the U.S. pledged not to invade Cuba and quietly agreed to pull its own missiles out of Turkey later.

More events on October 22

Year	What happened
1797	André-Jacques Garnerin jumped from a hydrogen balloon high above Paris from about 3,200 feet, the first parachute jump over Paris.
1836	Sam Houston, who had helped defeat Mexico in the Texas Revolution, was inaugurated as the first president of the Republic of Texas.
1895	A train with failing brakes smashed through the Gare Montparnasse station in Paris and ended up nose-down in the street below.
1906	Post-Impressionist painter Paul Cézanne died in Aix-en-Provence, France, at 67.
1926	Escape artist Harry Houdini was punched repeatedly in the stomach. He died nine days later.
1934	FBI agents shot and killed the fugitive Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd in a field in Ohio.
1957	Bombings in Saigon wounded 13 Americans, the first U.S. military casualties of the Vietnam War.
1964	French writer Jean-Paul Sartre was named winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and turned it down.
1965	President Lyndon Johnson signed the Highway Beautification Act to limit billboards and junkyards along interstate highways.
2008	India launched Chandrayaan-1, its first lunar probe, which later confirmed the presence of water molecules on the Moon.
2010	WikiLeaks released thousands of U.S. documents about the Iraq War.
2012	Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned from competitive cycling for life.

Born on October 22

1811: Franz Liszt, Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist.
1917: Joan Fontaine, Oscar-winning actress of Rebecca and Suspicion, born in Tokyo.
1943: Catherine Deneuve, French film star, born in Paris.