From Today I Found Out.

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Lasting from 1945 to 1991, the Cold War was one of the most dangerous periods in human history. For nearly five decades, East and West stood locked in an ever-escalating nuclear arms race, fingers poised on the buttons that would unleash global Armageddon. In such a tense atmosphere, even minor errors could prove disastrous, and on numerous occasions humanity came dangerously close to wiping itself out. From alert systems mistaking clouds or the moon for incoming missiles to a training tape being accidentally inserted into a defense computer, the causes of these near-misses are as terrifying as they are absurd, underscoring how truly lucky we are to have survived the twentieth century without a global nuclear conflict. However, one of the closest calls humanity has ever faced took place a full four years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, revealing that while the Cold War may be over, the threat of nuclear annihilation is still very much with us. This is the story of the 1995 Norwegian Rocket Incident.

Authors: Gilles Messier and Matt Blitz
Editor: Daven Hiskey
Hosts: Simon Whistler and Daven Hiskey
Producers: Samuel Avila and Daven Hiskey

0:00 Intro
2:31 10 Minutes to Doomsday
10:06 The Man Who Saved the World

Image Sources:

https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3c27233/
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_nuclear_strike_map.svg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dr._Strangelove_-_General_Buck_Turgidson.png
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vasili_Arkhipov.jpg