On 26 September 1983, the nuclear early-warning system of the Soviet Union reported the launch of multiple USAF Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles from bases in the United States. These missile attack warnings were correctly iden…

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Stanislav Petrov: ''I knew perfectly well that nobody would be able to correct my mistake if I had made one''

Thirty years ago, on 26 September 1983, the world was saved from potent…

Stanislav Petrov, 77, passed away on May 19, 2017. His death in his home in the Moscow suburbs was little noted at the time. Petrov, however, is one of a few humans who can say they literally saved the world. The veteran was a lieutenant co…

The alarm sounded during one of the tensest periods in the Cold War. Three weeks earlier, the Soviets had shot down a Korean Air Lines commercial flight after it crossed into Soviet airspace, killing all 269 people on board, including a con…

‘Gut instinct’ told Lt Col Stanislav Petrov that apparent launch of US missiles was actually early warning system malfunction

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A Soviet officer whose cool head and qui…

CLOSE The former Soviet military officer credited with preventing a possible nuclear disaster during the Cold War has died at age 77. Time

Stanislav Petrov at his home in Fryazino, Russia, on Aug. 27, 2015. (Photo: Pavel Golovkin, AP)

A Sov…

One night in 1983, a screen in a Soviet bunker began flashing red: nuclear attack or false alarm? One man had to decide. Colin Freeman tells his story

NB. This piece on Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov originally ran in 2015, and has bee…

Stanislav Petrov, 'The Man Who Saved The World,' Dies At 77

Enlarge this image toggle caption Pavel Golovkin/AP Pavel Golovkin/AP

Stanislav Petrov was a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Union's Air Defense Forces, and his job was to monitor…

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Stanislav Petrov: ''I knew perfectly well that nobody would be able to correct my mistake if I had made one''

A former Soviet military officer credited with averting a possible nucl…

Obit Stanislav Petrov, one of the unsung heroes of the Cold War without whose guts and intelligence you wouldn't be reading this, has died at the age of 77, his son has confirmed.

Petrov was a former Lieutenant Colonel in the Soviet Air Def…

Stanislav Petrov, the retired officer of the Soviet Air Defense Forces whose death at the age of 77 was announced this week, did not enjoy discussing the day he averted a nuclear holocaust.

Maybe he was tired of giving interviews about the …

Petrov told his commander that the system was giving false information. He was not at all certain, but he was driven by the fact that Soviet ground radar could not confirm a launch. The radar system picked up incoming missiles only well aft…

OVER the years, Stanislav Petrov got used to those telephone calls. Typically they would come at night or at the weekend, just as he was unwinding. He would lift the receiver to hear the jaunty strains of “Arise, our mighty country!” in his…

A terrifying message was flashed across phones, televisions and radios this weekend in Hawaii – “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL”.

Americans rushed for safety after the 8.10am message,…

During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were highly paranoid and both countries invested in building nuclear weaponry. While neither side wanted an actual war to break out, they prepared just in case. In such a state of …

Meet the man who single-handedly stopped a nuclear war

…And saved 4,590,774,355 lives

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One of the most important people to have ever lived passed away last year.

There wasn’t a…

If things had gone just slightly differently on a tense night in 1983, today would be the 35th anniversary of the start of of World War III, for whoever was left alive to observe such an occasion. 6:00 Eastern Time on September 25, 2018 mar…

On September 26, 1983, the planet came terrifyingly close to a nuclear holocaust.

The Soviet Union’s missile attack early warning system displayed, in large red letters, the word “LAUNCH”; a computer screen stated to the officer on duty, So…

Legend has it that on September 26, 1983, in a nuclear command and control center outside of Moscow, Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov detected five US nuclear warheads headed right for him but stood down from calling for a massive Soviet retaliati…

It was the moment Stanislav Petrov had been dreading since childhood, and preparing for much of his adult life.

After decades of Cold War tension, the early warning satellites had been triggered. The Americans had launched their nuclear mis…

A FORMER Soviet colonel credited with averting all-out nuclear war between Russia and the United States has been honoured 35 years after his heroic act.

Stanislav Petrov was working as an officer at a secret command base in Moscow in 1983 w…

A Soviet officer credited with preventing nuclear Armageddon 35 years ago has been posthumously awarded for 'saving the world'.

The actions of Stanislav Petrov in 1983 likely averted an all-out nuclear war between the United States and Russ…

He wouldn’t become the Left’s new man. Neither should we.

Thirty-five years ago, just after midnight on the morning of September 26, a midranking officer in the Soviet Army single-handedly saved both his country and ours. Now that the Ameri…

Can one man save the world? Could just one action by one person prevent the downfall of human civilization? This simply sounds like a fictional story like Superman. It’s unrealistic. But one man, Stanislav Petrov, was able to do this. Yet, …

“The Man Who Saved the World” is the gripping true story of a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defense Forces, Stanislav Petrov, who refused to order the launch of nuclear weapons when the warning system showed — erroneously — incoming …

Next week marks 35 years since America and Russia narrowly avoided fighting a nuclear war—the kind that “cannot be won and must never be fought,” in the words of Ronald Reagan. It wasn’t the first time the two nations lived through such a c…

The Cuban Missile Crisis is typically the gold standard for nuclear close calls. For 13 days, America had nuclear missiles ready to deploy from Italy and Turkey, while Russia did the same in Cuba. It is widely considered the nearest that we…