Ten Hours on the Brink of Nuclear Oblivion

On October 27, 1962, during the "most tense 10 hours" of the Cuban Missile Crisis, humanity narrowly escaped nuclear annihilation twice thanks to the individual actions of two officers. In Okinawa, U.S. Captain William Bassett bravely delayed a mistaken order to launch 32 nuclear missiles, refusing to fire until the command center corrected the error, noting that the DEFCON status had not been raised to the required level for war. Meanwhile, aboard the Soviet submarine B-59 near Cuba, officer Vasily Arkhipov refused to consent to the captain's order to fire a nuclear torpedo while under U.S. depth charge attacks, forcing the vessel to surface instead of sparking a global conflict.