The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought upon a new age, known as the atomic age. This also bought upon a new kind of fear, the fear of complete atomic annihilation. However, there have been hundreds of incidents where the world has almost committed omnicide. However, one event will forever stand out as the closet time where the world almost ended. 

October 27, 1962

At the height of the Cold War everyone had a fear of the world ending by incompetence. Humans are known to make mistakes, however in many situations a mistake can change the course of history forever. 

During October of 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis was occuring. Historians consider this to be the closest time when the Cold War almost went nuclear. During the month of October, soviet B-59 submarines attempted to run through the blockades established by the United States Navy. These were known as the “The Submarines of October”. 

One of these submarines was located by a group of eleven United States Navy destroyers along with the aircraft carrier USS Randolph. One of these destroyers, USS Beale, began to deploy low intensity practice depth charges to signal the submarine to surface. However, the captain of the submarine, Valentin Savitsky, misinterpreted this as an act of war and ordered a nuclear armed torpedo to counter attack the destroyer. For an attack like this to be carried out, a vote has to be casted by three officers on board. All officers have to agree to launch the weapon. In this case, two out of the three officers agreed to launch the torpedo. 

The officer who voted “no” on launching the weapon was named Vasili Arkhipov. He reasoned that the depth charges are a signal to surface and not an act of war. Officer Arkhipov then said that they need to resurface and get orders from Moscow. 

The submarine surfaced and was ordered to return to the Soviet Union. Upon returning to Russia, Arkhipov was disgraced from his superiors and even his wife. ““It would have been better if you’d gone down with your ship,” said Arkhipov’s wife. In the later years, Vasili Arkhipov avoided talking about the event. However in 2002, retired commander Vadim Orlov was being interviewed on the event when he stated that Arkhipov was the reason why the world was not obliterated in an atomic war.  

This is only one of the events in history where humanity almost brought the world to its end. Declassified documents from the United States show that there have been over a thousand “close calls” during and after the 1950’s. It is unknown how many close calls the Soviet Union has experienced or any other nuclear armed nation. It is truly a curse that humanity has been given the power to commit omnicide in less than a minute or even a second. No doubt about it, it is a miracle that humanity has lasted for this long.