The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world as close to all-out nuclear war as it has ever been.
At the height of the drama, it took 12 hours for Washington D.C. and Moscow to receive, decode and translate communications. Afterwards, both the U.S. and Soviet Union agreed that the two capital cities needed real-time communication capability.
For our World History Moment, historian John Schmidt explains the creation of the “Washington-Moscow Hotline.” (Contrary to popular belief, it was not a red phone.)