Save The World

From Twitter:
A. Do ya know who saved the world before ya were born?
B. Several people. JFK made a missile-for-missile deal to the USSR, saving us in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
A. No, it was Khrushchev’s idea.
B. Hmm. So, who?
A. A Russian, named _.

Vladimir Pusin
Stanislav Petrov
Yuri Gagarin

Answer: Stanislav Petrovic and Explanation: Stanislav Petrovic was Soviet Air Force officer in charge of monitoring incoming missiles. In 1983 he decided to ignore his instruments telling him that the USA had launched a missile strike against the Soviet Union…. Had he done his job according to protocol, we would have had a full scale nuclear war that would have ended–or could have ended the world or much of it. For more about nuclear weapons, go to http://samharris.org for a very good recent podcast with a nuclear weapons expert.

Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space (traveling in a rocket).
Vladimir Pusin is a made-up name.