Stanislav Petrov: The Man Who Saved the World
Stanislav Petrov was a Soviet lieutenant colonel who is credited with saving the world from nuclear war on September 26, 1983. On that night, Petrov was the duty officer at the Serpukhov-15 bunker, which housed the command center for the Soviet Union's early warning satellite system. At 00: 40 UTC, the system reported that a missile had been launched from the United States. Petrov dismissed the report as a false alarm, but just three minutes later, the system reported that four more missiles had been launched. Petrov was faced with a difficult decision. If he reported the incoming missiles to his superiors, they would likely order a retaliatory nuclear strike against the United States. This would have led to full-scale nuclear war, which would have meant the deaths of hundreds of millions of people. However, Petrov had reason to believe that the system was malfunctioning. The Soviet Union had recently shot down a Korean Air Lines passenger jet, and Petrov knew that this co...