During the Cold War, tensions and close calls often teetered dangerously near the edge of catastrophe. One of the most infamous moments occurred in September 1983, when Soviet early-warning satellites falsely signaled an incoming nuclear strike from the United States.
Stanislav Petrov, the man monitoring the system, trusted his instincts and dismissed the alarm as a glitch—possibly saving the world from a full-scale nuclear war. As time passes, these incidents become stories we tell to make sense of the past. Besides, who doesn’t love a gripping tale of narrowly dodging the apocalypse?
If you’d like to discover more about the infamous incident and how the Soviet lieutenant colonel prevented it, click through the gallery.