The standard story of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis credits Kennedy's standoff with Khrushchev, but Latin American governments played a decisive role. After Kennedy revealed the Soviet missiles on 22 October 1962, he asked the Organization of American States to act under the 1947 Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, framing the threat as hemispheric. On 23 October the OAS voted unanimously for a quarantine of Cuba, which made interdicting ships a multilateral act of common defence rather than a blockade. Mexico and Brazil, which still had ties to Havana, passed messages urging Cuban leaders to remove the missiles, and Mexico's navy patrolled the Yucatan Channel. Venezuela sent ships, aircraft and its only submarine to the quarantine force.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.