I grew up a witness to the Cold War. There's a good chance you did too. As is the case with something of such staggering magnitude, it permeated all parts of our lives. But it did so in ways that seem oddly disjointed and almost comic at times.

How could an event that provided the plot for one of my favorite, funniest movies, "Dr. Strangelove," be the same situation that most children described as their greatest fear? How could the planning and preparation of a great nation lead to something as ludicrous as a "Duck and Cover" drill? And could a ripping good yarn like "Hunt for Red October" be just a good read? Or was it indicative of things to come? If you're familiar with anything I mentioned in this paragraph, then you're a witness to the Cold War too.

So now that it's moved from something we lived to something we study, why is it different than any of the other periods of history that we learned about in school? It is different because most of you were there. You saw nuclear bombs tested and missiles launched. You heard threats you were to be buried or were part of an evil empire. One day, you watched the Berlin Wall come down.

As CNN looks back at this remarkable period, the people who tell the story are not historians relying on accounts of observers long dead. They are the actors in this drama, your contemporaries, witnesses along with the rest of us.

CNN has taken these eyewitness accounts, blended in images and scenes never seen by the public, and now presents them through the one-of-a-kind medium that is the World Wide Web. Through this ambitious site, you will explore all aspects of the Cold War. Test your knowledge, express your opinion, and expand your understanding. What we offer is a method to make the Cold War come alive as never before through a technology that itself is a Cold War byproduct. If ever there was a story made for the Internet, this is it.

And so we invite you to come in. You already have your ticket. It was given to you when you were born, like the rest of us, a member of the Cold War generation.