This morning while watching the news there were a number of items on the 12th anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, and Pentagon. Over the last 12 years the United Staes has been in a state of war that was spawned from the events that took place that day. I am not going to go on about the war, or the current crisis in Syria. I’m not going to make any political comments, or reflections. I am going to say that 50 years ago this October, all of what we have might have been blown away. 50 years ago next month marks the anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and if you don’t realize just how close we came to all out nuclear war with Russia you need to take a look at the “Clouds over Cuba” website.

Produced by the JFK Presidential Library, Clouds over Cuba is a multi-platform immersive interactive documentary that shows how the Cuban missile crisis played out over 13 days. There are 15 in depth chapters that feature more than 200 recordings, videos, images, and interviews. Each item can be synced with iCal on your iPhone and iPad so you can play back the events in realtime. The entire crisis plays out to a final chapter that shows what would have happened if nuclear war had prevailed. The video below is a synopsis of the event, website, and multi-platform experience that was built using HTML5, Java Script, and Webhooks to complete the experience. This really is a great piece of interactive work that exposes the history to a whole new generation of individuals that don’t realize just how close we came to losing it all.