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Most of humanity don't realize how close to annihilation we've come since WWII. The following are the known 'close calls':
Oct. 27, 1962 - a Soviet submarine officer named Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov reportedly refused to comply with the launch of a nuclear warhead while apparently under attack by a U.S. warship near Cuba. In order to initiate such an attack, Soviet naval procedures stated that the captain and two other officers must concur. The other officer on duty agreed to the launch, but Arkhipov conviced the captain to wait for instructions from Moscow before proceeding.
October 24, 1973, as the Yom Kippur War was winding down, a Soviet threat to intervene on Egypt's behalf caused the United States to go to DEFCON 3.
November 9 ,1979, when the US made emergency retaliation preparations after NORAD saw on-screen indications that a full-scale Soviet attack had been launched. Early warning radar systems confirmed no such launch had taken place. A computer system test had caused the display errors and caused the absolute panic at NORAD.
Sept 26, 1983 Colonel Stanislav Petrov had 2-3 minutes to respond to 5 incoming nuclear warheads from the US according to his early warning system alarms. Against protocols, he did not push the button and did not notify his superiors, who would have most probably launched a counter-attack. The "rocket launches" were later found to be sun rays bouncing off of high altitude clouds.
Nov 1983, the USSR mistook a test of NATO's nuclear-release procdures as a fake cover for a NATA attack and subsequently raised its nuclear alert level. It wasn't till afterwrd that the US realized how close it had come to nuclear war.
Jan. 25, 1995 - Russia almost launched a nuclear attack after a Norwegian missile launch for scientific research was detected from Spitsbergen and thought to be an attack on Russia, launched five minutes from Moscow. This was the first time in history that the Russian suitcase carrying the codes was activated.
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