Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov averted a likely nuclear holocaust when, at great personal risk, he took a stand by not immediately alerting his superiors of five incoming Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles——which, incidentally, were the consequence of a system malfunction. In a time of strained international relations, Petrov's cool-headed approach to a world-threatening technical glitch violated draconian Soviet military protocol, resisted rampant Cold War paranoia, and, most importantly, saved the world.
