The word “Hero” is bandied around a little too often these days. However, Stanislav Petrov is a bona fide hero, and we all owe him our life.
Petrov was working at a Russian early warning center at the height of the Cold War, when his computers indicated the U.S. had launched missiles. If he had passed the news up the chain of command, the USSR would have fired back, setting a nuclear holocaust in motion.
Instead, Petrov chose to wait a little longer to see if the computer was falsely reporting a missile launch. And that pause for thought saved the world.
Petrov recently died at the age of 77, and he should be remembered forever for that one small action that had massive consequences for everyone reading this.
