Introduction. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores.
Base Metal. Base metal is a jewelry industry term for nonprecious metals used in costume jewelry, including copper, aluminum, brass, nickel silver, pewter and white metal, also called pot metal. Nickel silver is a silvery-white alloy resembling silver made from nickel, zinc, copper, iron, manganese and sometimes lead.nlike fine jewelry, costume jewelry is made from nonprecious metals called base metals. Most of these are both beautiful and relatively benign. However, nickel can cause an allergic reaction, while the lead found in some alloys has been linked to far more serious conditions and is highly regulated.
The oldest metal object found in the Middle East consists of copper (it was a tiny awl dating back as far as 5100 B.C.). The U.S. penny was originally made of pure copper (nowadays, it is 97.5 percent zinc with a thin copper skin).Copper ranks as third-most-consumed industrial metal in the world, after iron and aluminum, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Pennies were made of pure copper only from 1783 to 1837. 2  For most of the coin's history, it has been made of bronze (95 percent copper, with 5 percent tin and zinc). 3  Today, pennies are 97.5 percent zinc and 2.5 percent copper. 4  People need copper in their diets.