World War III?

For Christmas I received a great book called "100 Things You're Not Supposed to Know". Im only 9 pages in, but sense I'm a sucker for "the untold story", I thought i'd share with you something I learned....

On January 25, 1995 World War III was a lot closer to happening then you might have thought. Norway and the United States had launched a research rocket for charting the Arctic from a Norwegian island. And as they always do, Norway had alerted Russia in advance about the firing. However, somehow the message never made its way to the right people (coffee break perhaps? or maybe even a Vodka break?). So in the middle of the night, Russian radar detected what looked like a nuclear missile launched toward Moscow from a US submarine. President Boris Yeltsin was woken up, given the news, and for the first time ever (or so we hope), activated the infamous black suitcase that contains the codes for launching nuclear missiles. Luckily as he was conferring with his advisors about which bombs to use and where to point them, the radar showed the missile was headed out to sea... Talk about a close call.

Merry Christmas - Chris