In what is a very interesting read, this article by Sandra S. Phillips, senior curator of photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, revisits how reconnaissance photographs triggered The Cuban Missile crisis of 1962.

The picture is strangely beautiful; it is clearly an aerial view of what appears to be some curious and unassuming scratches in the ground below. There is a torsion between the fields and roadways that we easily recognize and the photograph looks like a wonderful drawing, like a giant child’s game, or some magic sign. In fact, the meaning and impact of this picture—made form an American spy plane flying over Cuba on August 29, 1962—is more complex. This photograph triggered the beginning of an international dispute between the American government and the Russians during the Cold War in the 1960s, and had the potential to spark a nuclear exchange.

via Photography changes the course of international events.