5 times World War III almost happened

2. The B-59 Submarine Incident

A minor incident aboard a Soviet submarine might stand as the closest the world has ever come to nuclear war. On October 27, 1962, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the American destroyer USS Beale began dropping depth charges on the nuclear-armed Soviet submarine B-59, which was lurking near the U.S. blockade line around Cuba. The charges were non-lethal warning shots intended to force B-59 to the surface, but the submarine’s captain mistook them for live explosives. Convinced he was witnessing the opening salvo of World War III, the captain angrily ordered his men to arm the sub’s lone nuclear-tipped torpedo and prepare for attack.

The misunderstanding could have resulted in disaster if not for a contingency measure that required all three of the submarine’s senior officers to sign off on a nuclear launch. The Soviet captain was in favor, but Vasili Arkhipov, B-59’s second in command, refused to give his consent. After calming the captain down, Arkhipov coolly convinced his fellow officers to bring B-59 to the surface and request new orders from Moscow. The submarine eventually returned to Russia without incident, but it was over 40 years before a full account of Arkhipov’s life-saving decision finally came to light.