Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov is the the man who saved the world.

Arkhipov was second-in-command on the Soviet Submarine B-59 in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The US Navy had discovered the sub near Cuba. A fleet of 11 American destroyers had been chasing it, dropping signaling depth charges to force the it to surface.

The sub's captain was Valentin Grigorievitch Savitsky. Out of radio contact with Moscow for many days and with depth charges being dropped, he believed that war between the US and the Soviet Union had broken out.

He decided to fire the ship's nuclear torpedoes. But he needed two other officers to agree: the ship's political officer, Ivan Semonovich Maslennikov, and Arkhipov.

Maslennikov agreed.

Arkhipov did not.

And that's why we're alive today.

If Arkhipov had agreed it would almost certainly have resulted in an all-out nuclear war.

Thank you, Vasili.