On October 6, 1961, President John F. Kennedy recommended that American families build bomb shelters in the event of a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. Only one year later, the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war when the Cuban Missile Crisis erupted over the USSR’s placement of nuclear missiles in Cuba. During the tense 13-day crisis, some Americans prepared for nuclear war by buying up canned goods and completing last-minute work on their backyard bomb shelters.
