Just over 25 years ago, on 26th September, 1983, at the height of the Cold War, this man made a judgement call that may have saved my life. If you're over 25 years old and live in the UK, he possibly saved your life, too. If you're over 25 years old and lived in the USA, there's about a 70% probability that he saved you. And so on, right through almost every NATO and Warsaw Pact country, all 750 million of us. He lost his job for it, and suffered a nervous breakdown. He doesn't consider himself to be a hero but his actions probably prevented a disaster from overwhelming us all.
His name is Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov — visit Wikipedia to find out why you should be grateful to him for the rest of your life.
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