The book 11/22/63 by Stephen King had a great scene about the Cuban Missile Crisis that I thought was amazing at humanizing the whole situation.

Before reading that scene, the Cuban Missile Crisis was a short blip in my highschool history book. I had a vague idea that the Russians were moving nukes to Cuba and the US said that would be crossing a line in the sand which they would consider a nuclear attack. But that was it.

The scene from the book tells it from a family's perspective going through all the fear and uncertainty that the average person was feeling. People were absolutely convinced that the world was ending. It's worth a read.