Presidency of John F. Kennedy

An elderly white man in front of a white background

Khrushchev’s son recalls Sputnik, Gagarin ascent in US-Soviet space race

Global Politics

In October 1957, a beach-ball sized metal globe hurtled through space a couple hundred miles above the United States. That orb was the first artificial Earth satellite — Sputnik. Sergei Khrushchev, former missile engineer and son of Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, remembers the US-Soviet race into space.

A declassified memo documenting plans for Castro to meet secretly with a US envoy. It's dated the very day of JFK's assassination.

How Kennedy’s assassination ended hopes for a reconciliation with Castro

Global Politics
President Kennedy meets with Chairman Khrushchev at the US Embassy residence, Vienna.

The White House to Kremlin Hotline: Avoiding War for 50 Years

Arts, Culture & Media

The French connection: New book provides sweeping history of Vietnam War

Arts, Culture & Media

Peace Corps looking for more volunteers among AARP age group

Peace Corps Friendship Changes Lives in Kenya and Beyond

Arts, Culture & Media

Mohamud Said was a school boy in northern Kenya when he met Peace Corps volunteer Russell Morgan in 1965. Now Said is the president of the Kenyan Medical Association. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Said and Morgan about how their friendship changed them.

The World

The Armageddon Letters: 50 Years After the Cuban Missile Crisis

Global Politics

“The Armageddon Letters” project aims to engage younger, more gadget-addicted consumers of history and politics.

The Real End of the Cuban Missile Crisis

   For some of us the memory of the Cuban Missile Crisis is found only in the back of textbooks or movie theater screens, placed before  Woodstock  but after  McCarthyism  in the mind’s historical timeline. For others, the memory of those long, tense, days in October feel far more real than any documentary or Kevin Costner  movie. And like any […]

The World

Graying of the Peace Corps

Arts, Culture & Media

With the Peace Corps turning 50 this year, reporter Megan Verlee found it’s trying to woo more volunteers its own age.

The World

Peace Corps celebrates 50 years

Arts, Culture & Media

Fifty years ago today, the foundation was laid for the Peace Corps. (The organization was actually created in March 1961 when it was signed into law.) We explore the birth of this organization founded by President John F. Kennedy.