Stanislav Petrov: The Man Who Saved the World in 1983

Somehow, "saving the world" is a very popular theme in Hollywood movies, story books, comics, etc... Which made me wonder: hey, what about the real world? Are there any heroes on the global scale as well? After googling for "saved the world", I found one candidate saviour: Stanislav Petrov. Here are two articles that talk about his (largely unsung) heroism:

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1421370

http://www.mosnews.com/feature/2004/05/21/petrov.shtml