On January 25, 1995, Russian President Boris Yeltsin was handed the nuclear briefcase. A rocket had been detected heading toward Russian airspace. For 38 minutes, the fate of the world hung on one man's judgment call.

The rocket was actually a Norwegian scientific research probe studying the Northern Lights. Norway had notified Russia weeks earlier. The message never reached the radar operators.

Yeltsin chose not to launch. The world never noticed.

This is the kind of story I write about every week at Epochs — the hidden moments, the near-misses, the turning points most people never hear about. History that reads like a thriller because it is one.

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