The Cold War was a tense period for both the United States and the Soviet Union. The origin of this tension was the relationship between the two opposing political and economic systems. The leader most responsible for this situation was the dictator of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin. During the period following World War II, relations between the communist Soviet Union and the capitalist United States were governed by a complex combination of ideological, economic, and political factors that led to a bitter rivalry over who was the world superpower with the ideal. political system, communism versus capitalism. Differences between the communist government of the Soviet Union and the capitalist political system of the United States often prevented the two nations from agreeing on key issues. This caused events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. On October 14, 1962, a spy plane flying over Cuba discovered nuclear missile sites under construction. These missiles would have been capable of destroying the United States. The president at the time was John F. Kennedy and he decided to order a naval blockade of Cuba. Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union increased significantly because of this event, as the missile sites in Cuba were built by the Soviets. The Cuban Missile Crisis lasted from October 18 to 28, 1962. Eventually, Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union, announced that the missiles would be removed from Cuba. The United States then withdrew and disarmed the nuclear weapons it had aimed at the Soviet Union. This era is considered the closest the world has ever been to total end...... middle of paper ...... and modern Russia has improved significantly, nuclear weapons from this era can yet to be found, ready to be fired with 15 minutes' notice. Works Cited “Big Ivan, Tsar Bomba (“King of Bombs”), the world's largest nuclear weapon. NuclearWeaponsArchive.org. Np, September 3, 2007. Web. May 9, 2011. Foner, Eric. Give me freedom! 2nd ed. New York: WW Norton & Company, nd Print. Gladdis, John Lewis. The Cold War: A New History. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print. “Niel Armstrong had a secret.” Slow travel. NP, 2004. Web. May 6, 2011. Shambroom, Paul. Face to face with the bomb: nuclear reality after the Cold War. New York: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. 13-45. Print.Taubman, William. Khrushchev: The Man and His Times. Np: WW Norton & Company, 2004. 300-458. Print."1969: Man takes his first steps on the Moon." BBC that day. BBC, 2008. The web. May 6 2011.