When most people think of saving the world, they picture Superman swooping in at the last minute, bomb squads barely defusing deadly devices, and scientists discovering eleventh-hour miracle weapons to fend off alien hordes. But the real-life heroes who have saved the world have much better stories.While spur-of-the-moment heroics have sometimes rescued the planet, humanity has more often escaped destruction because of clear thinking and patience in the face of danger. Some acts of heroism have taken place over years or decades, the result of hard work and tireless labor. Other heroes died without ever even knowing what they had done or how it would be remembered.Regardless of how the act took place, its safe to say that these eight real-life heroes actually saved the world.Stanislav PetrovScott Peterson/ Getty ImagesStanislav Petrov at his home in 2004.On Sept. 26, 1983, real-life hero Stanislav Petrov singlehandedly prevented a worldwide nuclear war when he followed his gut and chose to ignore a missile alarm. Petrov was a few hours into his shift as the duty officer at Serpukhov-15, the secret command center outside Moscow that monitored Soviet military satellites over the United States. Suddenly the alarms went off, warning that five Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles had been launched from an American base.Petrov didnt panic. He knew that the alarm systems were in their early stages and personally believed the warning to be false though he later recalled that there was actually a 50-50 chance that they werent. Instead of reporting the missile attacks, Petrov turned the alarm off and told his supervisor that there had been a system malfunction.In an interview with the BBC, Stanislav Petrov remembers hearing the alarms go off.Ultimately, Petrov was right: the alarm signaling a missile attack had been false. Had Petrov reported the attack as real, a worldwide nuclear war could have been launched.But by keeping a cool head and taking the time to evaluate the situation, Petrov saved the world. I had a funny feeling in my gut, he told The Washington Post. I didnt want to make a mistake. I made a decision, and that was it.A cool head and quick thinking also helped: when he considered the matter, he decided that if the Americans were really starting a war, the attack would have to be much larger and more intense.When people start a war, they dont start it with only five missiles, he said.Real-Life Hero Vasili ArkhipovWikimedia CommonsVasili Arkhipov, 1960.During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, Vasili Arkhipov made a decision that historians would later come to believe single-handedly prevented World War III.Arkhipov was one of three commanders aboard Soviet submarine B-59 on Oct. 27, 1962, when it received an order from Soviet leadership to stop in the Caribbean just short of the American blockade that surrounded Cuba. The sub would serve as backup for a secret arms drop off on the island.To hide its location from the Americans, the sub stayed deep but not deep enough.The U.S. Navy detected the Soviet vessel and began dropping non-lethal depth charges in order to spook the commanders and force the sub to the surface for identification. What the Americans didnt know was that the B-59 was heavily armed aboard the sub was a nuclear missile as strong as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Wikimedia CommonsSoviet submarine B-59 in the Caribbean near Cuba. Oct. 28, 1962.When the B-59 dove, it lost communication with the surface; it had no way to communicate with Moscow for orders. Shaken by the American depth charges (depth charges they assumed were attacks) and unable to contact anyone above, two of the subs commanders made the choice to fire the onboard missile.To launch the torpedo, however, all three commanders on the sub needed to approve the decision. Enter Vasili Arkhipov.The subs third commander had managed to remain level-headed throughout the depth charges reverberations. He suspected that they were not attacks but simply a ploy to lure the B-59 to the surface. He was correct. After waiting as long as fuel and oxygen reserves would allow, the sub broke the surface to find itself amidst U.S. warships but no all-out warfare. It beat a hasty retreat home, leaving the Americans none the wiser about the nuclear attack they had narrowly avoided thanks to the real-life hero Vasili Arkhipov. The post Eight Real-Life Heroes Who Literally Saved The World appeared first on All That's Interesting.