londonbard

It is 40 years since Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov took the decision that probably saved the world.

For those unfamiliar with the history, on September 26, 1983, Petrov Stanislav was on duty at Soviet nuclear early warning center Serpukhov-15; there was an alert and a report that five American nuclear missiles were heading toward the Soviet Union. The protocol called for retaliation but Stanislav followed his gut feeling and convinced the armed forces that it was a false alarm. His decision saved the world from nuclear war.

Thank you, Mr Petrov.

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To my astonishment, when I was Googling for a link to "the man who saved the world" I found another!

On 27th October, 1961, during the Cuban missile crisis, the Americans depth-charged a Russian nuclear submarine even though they were international waters - and then the captain wanted to retaliate with a nuclear missle, but ...