Petrov Day
Today, 31 years ago, the human species nearly came to an end. Lieutenant colonel Stanislav Petrov was the officer on duty in bunker Serpukhov-15 near Moscow, monitoring the Soviet Union early warning satellite network. If notification was received that it had detected approaching missiles the official strategy was launch on warning: an immediate counter-attack against the United States. International relations were on a hair trigger: just days before Korean Air Lines Flight 007 had been shot down by Soviet fighter jets, killing everybody onboard (including a US congressman). Kreml was claiming the jet had been on a spy mission, or even deliberately trying to provoke war.
Shortly after midnight the computers reported a single intercontinental missile heading towards Russia.