The Man Who Saved The World 30 Years Ago

Petrov receives a 2011 German media award from Karlheinz Koegel, chief of the German Media Research Group, during a ceremony in 2012. (Reuters)

The Man Who Saved the World by Doing Absolutely Nothing -- The Atlantic

Thirty years ago, Stanislav Petrov proved a cool head in a Cold War.

It was September 26, 1983. Stanislav Petrov, a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air Defence Forces, was on duty at Serpukhov-15, a secret bunker outside Moscow. His job: to monitor Oko, the Soviet Union's early-warning system for nuclear attack. And then to pass along any alerts to his superiors. It was just after midnight when the alarm bells began sounding. One of the system's satellites had detected that the United States had launched five ballistic missiles. And they were heading toward the USSR. Electronic maps flashed; bells screamed; reports streamed in. A back-lit red screen flashed the word 'LAUNCH.'"

That the U.S. would be lobbing missiles toward its Soviet counterpart would not, of course, have been out of the question at that particular point in human history. Three weeks earlier, Russians had shot down a South Korean airliner that had wandered into Soviet air space. NATO had responded with a show of military exercises. The Cold War, even in the early '80s, continued apace; the threat of nuclear engagement still hovered over the stretch of land and sea that fell between Washington and Moscow.

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More News On The Man Who Saved The World 30 Years Ago

Stanislav Petrov: The man who may have saved the world -- BBC
The Soviet Colonel Who Averted Nuclear War -- Radio Free Europe
30 years on: The day a computer glitch nearly caused World War III -- The Register
How One Russian Man Helped Prevent A Nuclear Holocaust -- Huffington Post

My Comment: This is wrote about him last year ....

.... Life is always very strange. A retired officer who now lives the simple life of a pensioner .... but .... his 15 minutes of fame ended up saving hundreds of millions (if not billions) of lives. His name is only known by a few, but the world owes him a debt a gratitude that will be remembered for all time.

For more info on the incident that could have plunged the world into nuclear war, go here.