Khrushchev's Shoe-Banging Incident

Date: October 12, 1960 • Location: Moscow, Russia

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev reportedly pounded his shoe on a desk during a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in protest at a speech by Philippine delegate Lorenzo Sumulong.

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. As leader of the Soviet Union, he shocked the world by denouncing his predecessor Joseph Stalin, embarking on a campaign of de-Stalinization, and presiding over the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.