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The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a failed landing operation that ended on this day in 1961 on the southwestern coast of Cuba by Cuban exiles who opposed Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution. Covertly financed and directed by the U.S. government, the operation took place at the height of the Cold War, and its failure led to major shifts in international relations between Cuba, the United States, and the Soviet Union. In 1952, American ally General Fulgencio Batista led a coup against President Carlos Prio and forced Prio into exile in Miami, Florida. Prio's exile inspired the creation of the 26th of July Movement against Batista by Castro. The movement successfully completed the Cuban Revolution in December 1958. Castro nationalized American businesses—including banks, oil refineries, and sugar and coffee plantations—then severed Cuba's formerly close relations with the United States and reached out to its Cold War rival, the Soviet Union. In response, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower allocated $13.1 million to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in March 1960, for use against Castro. With the aid of Cuban counter-revolutionaries, the CIA proceeded to organize an invasion operation. After Castro's victory, Cuban exiles who had traveled to the U.S. had formed the counter-revolutionary military unit Brigade 2506. The brigade fronted the armed wing of the Democratic Revolutionary Front (DRF), and its purpose was to overthrow Castro's government. The CIA funded the brigade, which also included some U.S. military personnel, and trained the unit in Guatemala. Over 1,400 paramilitaries, divided into five infantry battalions and one paratrooper battalion, assembled and launched from Guatemala and Nicaragua by boat on 17 April 1961. Two days earlier, eight CIA-supplied B-26 bombers had attacked Cuban airfields and then returned to the U.S. On the night of 17 April, the main invasion force landed on the beach at Playa Girón in the Bay of Pigs, where it overwhelmed a local revolutionary militia. Initially, José Ramón Fernández led the Cuban Army counter-offensive; later, Castro took personal control. As the invaders lost the strategic initiative, the international community found out about the invasion, and U.S. President John F. Kennedy decided to withhold further air support. The plan devised during Eisenhower's presidency had required the involvement of both air and naval forces. Without air support, the invasion was being conducted with fewer forces than the CIA had deemed necessary. The invaders surrendered on 20 April. Most of the invading counter-revolutionary troops were publicly interrogated and put into Cuban prisons. The invading force had been defeated within three days by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces (Spanish: Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias – FAR). The invasion was a U.S. foreign policy failure. The invasion's defeat solidified Castro's role as a national hero and widened the political division between the two formerly-allied countries. It also pushed Cuba closer to the Soviet Union, setting the stage for the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. (Cold War)

Also on this day in 1914, the Ludlow Massacre occurred when the Colorado National Guard and a private security force attacked 1,200 striking coal miners, killing 21 people, including women and children. The event took place during the Colorado Coalfield War, a period of violent labor unrest in Colorado from 1913-1914. The massacre was the culmination of months of labor strife in Ludlow, Colorado. It began at a meeting between the anti-union militia and a reluctant labor leader Louis Tikas. Although Tikas discouraged violence, the strikers, who had noticed machine guns placed above the Ludlow colony, took cover in ad hoc fire positions. Accounts differ as to who shot first, but a battle commenced between the armed factions, leading to nearly a dozen deaths, including one twelve-year-old boy who was shot in the head. After the violence subdued, Tikas and other strikers were found shot in the back. The chief owner of the mine, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was widely condemned for having orchestrated the massacre. In retaliation, the miners armed themselves and attacked dozens of anti-union establishments over the next ten days, destroying property and engaging in several skirmishes with the Colorado National Guard in a 40-mile front from Trinidad to Walsenburg. An estimated 69 to 199 deaths occurred total during the strike, leading historian Thomas G. Andrews has called it the "deadliest strike in the history of the United States". Although the strikers' demands were not met, the event electrified national discussions of labor and had a positive impact on labor rights in the long run. (Massacres)