Bay of Pigs Invasion

The Bay of Pigs is an inlet of the Gulf of Cazones on the southern coast of Cuba. By 1910, it was included in Santa Clara Province, and then instead... to Las Villas Province by 1961, but in 1976, it was re-assigned to Matanzas Province, when the original six provinces of Cuba were re-organized into 14 new Provinces of Cuba. This bay is about 30 kilometers south of Jagüey Grande, 70 kilometers west of the city of Cienfuegos, and 150 kilometers southeast from the capital city Havana. On the western side of the bay there are coral reefs bordering the main Zapata Swamp, part of the Zapata Peninsula. On the eastern side are beaches bordering margins of firm ground with mangroves and extensive areas of swampland to the north and east. At the north end of the bay is the village of Buena Ventura adjacent to Playa Larga , and 35 kilometers southeast of that is Playa Girón at the village of Girón, named after the notorious French pirate Gilberto Giron .
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The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition... between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States and its NATO allies. Both sides possessed nuclear weapons, and because their use would probably guarantee their mutual assured destruction the chief military forces never engaged in a major battle with each other. The nuclear deterrent kept the war 'cold.' The conflict was expressed through military coalitions, strategic conventional force deployments, extensive aid to states deemed vulnerable, proxy wars, espionage, propaganda, conventional and nuclear arms races, appeals to neutral nations, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the Space Race. The antagonistic behaviour that both sides displayed towards their enemy resulted in many crises which risked mutual annihilation in a nuclear exchange.
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