What factors might have influenced President Kennedy's decision to launch the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba in 1961?

Though many of his military advisors indicated that an amphibious assault on Cuba by a group of lightly armed exiles had little chance for success, Kennedy gave the go-ahead for the attack. The hope was that the exile force would serve as a rallying point for the Cuban citizenry, who would rise up and overthrow Castro’s government. The plan immediately fell apart–the landing force met with unexpectedly rapid counterattacks from Castro’s military, the tiny Cuban air force sank most of the exiles’ supply ships, the United States refrained from providing necessary air support, and the expected uprising never happened. The failure at the Bay of Pigs cost the United States dearly. Eventually that aid included missiles, and the construction of missile bases in Cuba sparked the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the United States and the Soviet Union nearly came to blows over the issue. Kennedy tried to redeem himself by publicly accepting blame for the attack and its subsequent failure, but the botched mission left the young president looking vulnerable and indecisive.

two months after his defeat of napoleon bonaparte's colonial forces, jean-jacques dessalines proclaims the independence of saint-domingue, renaming it haiti after its original arawak name. in 1791, a slave revolt erupted on the french colony, and toussaint-louverture, a former slave, took control of the rebels.