On the night of September 26th, 1983, a Soviet lieutenant colonel named Stanislav Petrov sat in a bunker monitoring early warning systems when alarms signaled the launch of American nuclear missiles. Alone with the decision, he had mere minutes to determine whether to report the strike and unleash retaliation that could have ended civilization. Petrov hesitated, trusting his gut over the machine.
He was right—the alert was triggered by sunlight bouncing off clouds. His quiet defiance may have saved the world, but almost no one heard his name for another fifteen years. This episode takes you inside the Cold War as you’ve never heard it—a conflict waged not just with tanks and treaties, but with secrets, sabotage, and surreal moments that brought us terrifyingly close to annihilation.
We unravel how the United States imported Nazi scientists to build rockets, how the CIA toppled elected governments and plotted the assassination of foreign leaders with gadgets straight out of a spy film, and how the military once seriously considered faking terrorist attacks on U.S. soil to justify war with Cuba. We dive into the stories of individuals who defied orders and changed history, like the Soviet submarine commander who refused to fire a nuclear torpedo during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
You'll learn about the bloody, U.S.-backed purge in Indonesia, the accidental toppling of the Berlin Wall, and the global chessboard of proxy wars from Korea to Vietnam. Along the way, we confront the rise of a domestic surveillance state that didn’t just target enemies abroad but turned inward on civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. This is a story of unimaginable weapons built by brilliant minds and placed in the hands of flawed men. It’s a story where accidents, miscommunications, and sheer luck averted catastrophe again and again. For forty-five years, the world hovered at the brink, holding its breath. This is how we made it through.
