You would think the entire planet being on the verge of annihilation constitutes "big news" enough to be common knowledge, but apparently it's not. I realised one of my friends had no clue what the Cold War was, and when I went around chasing this I found another friend that had never heard of it... HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN!?

The Cold War... basically, about 50 years ago, Russia (communist) and America (capitalist) were the only two major superpowers left in the world. Long story short, Russia pointed a shit load of nukes at America, and America pointed a shit load of nukes back at Russia... now officially, the countries never went to war, hence it is referred to as "cold" as nothing officially happened, but Russia and American troops were facing off under the guise of Korean troops in Korea in the 50's and on various other microcosmic battlegrounds. In 1961 Russia and America faced off... nukes were literally in the air, within striking distance of one another aboard nuclear bombers - this would have meant if one country decided to nuke the other, the other could nuke the aggressor back before the nukes wiped out their own country. In other words, literally most of the planet would have been destroyed as hundreds of nukes would have all gone of simultaneously around the globe.

How... HOW does somebody miss this!? The human race was almost obliterated, not that long ago, and some people don't know about it?

The first person that I spoke to that didn't know what it was also is oblivious to a little thing called "Vietnam"...

I asked them... have you NEVER seen a James Bond movie? Have you never played a computer game!? Have you never watched a MOVIE!? How can you possibly be unaware of this? And they are like... "I'm not 50 years old... it was forever ago..." but like... but... but... that's just RETARDED?