Afghanistan is a country at the crossroads of the world. Just about every major Eurasian Empire has been entangled in Afghan affairs at some point. The history of Afghanistan brings clarity not just to our understanding of the decline of the Soviet Union, but the entire modern world.

The Soviet Union was an officially and aggressively atheist state. However, religious traditions were strongly rooted among the peoples of the USSR. Even amidst an atmosphere of persecution, various Christian, Muslim, and Jewish communities persevered and even thrived.

As Brezhnev pushed back against the reforms of his predecessor, members of the Soviet intelligentsia who had been inspired by the Khrushchev thaw, refused to be silenced. By the 1970's, underground human rights organizations were springing up all over the USSR. While the KGB could destroy individual groups, they had greater difficulty containing the ideas that inspired them.

When the Soviet Union and several Warsaw Pact allies invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, it put an end to the reforms of the Prague Spring. However, it also fractured the Communist World, leading Albania to defect from the Warsaw Pact and deepening the Soviet rift with China.

The Brezhnev era was, socially and politically, the most stable in the history of the USSR. However, it is also the period in which its economic decline accelerated. The complete collapse of the 80's and 90's had its roots in the mismanagement of the 60's and 70's.

In October 1964, a plot was executed to force Nikita Khrushchev from power. Khrushchev's fall, not so coincidentally, was concurrent with the rise of his protege - Leonid Brezhnev.

In October 1962, the presence of nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba brought the world to the brink of catastrophe. The ensuing Cuban Missile Crisis was also a pivotal moment in the decline of the USSR.

The islands of the Caribbean, which are today popular tourist destinations, were once home to some of the most concentrated suffering in human history. Above all, it was the Caribbean sugar industry that fueled the inhumanity of the Atlantic Slave Trade.

The unlikely success of Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement in the late 1950's is one of the most fascinating underdog stories in world history, and it set the stage for the most dramatic moment of the Cold War.

For a relatively small island nation, Cuba has consistently had an outsized impact on world history, shaping the destinies of empires and superpowers. Cuba's destiny in the modern world was forged, above all, by one man - Fidel Castro.