The man who saved the world
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THE MAN WHO SAVED THE WORLD
description
This is a story about Stanislav Petrov, the man who saved the world.
Transcript of The man who saved the world
THE MAN WHO SAVED THE WORLD
StanislavPetrov(1939 ~ )
Stanislav Petrov
Former military of-ficer of Soviet Union
Saved the world by doing … noth-ing!
Background
Cold War Era (1947 ~ 1991)
Political Conflict
Nuclear Race
Sept. 1st 1983Korean Air LinesFlight 007
Shot down by So-viet interceptors
269 people dead
Including U.S. congressman
Soviet Union vs. United States
Nuclear war was at hand
The Incident
September 23rd 1983
Secret bunker outside Moscow
Early-warning Satellite Sys-tem
For ICBMs from USA
Stanislav Petrov was in charge of monitoring the alarm
Suddenly, the alarm went off
“USSR is under attack!”
Five missiles heading into Soviet.
The start of nuclear war?
Two choices for Petrov
1. push the red but-ton
2. ignore the alert
Pushing the red button -Retaliate by launching a full-scale nuclear war
Instead of pushing the but-ton,
He analyzed the data before making his decision.
‘Just five missiles to launch a war?’
He thought it was a false
alarm.
And decided not to push the button.
In fact, there was no missile.
A satellite was malfunction-ing by reflections of sun
light.
Nuclear war had been averted.
Millions of lives were
saved.
Aftermath
Soviet military covered up the incident.
There was no reward to Petrov.
He was forced into early re-tirement
His story became known to the world in 1998 by a book about
him.
He was presented with a ‘World Citizen Award’ in 2004
“For fifteen seconds we were in a state of shock… I had a funny feel-
ing in my gut. I didn’t want to make a mistake. I made a deci-
sion, and that was it.”
One man, one clear-thinking man, literally
saved the world and you and me.
With just one decision, you can change your entire future
Thank You
