For a few crucial moments on September 26, 1983, Stanislav Petrov held the fate of the world in his hands. When an alarm suddenly went off at Soviet nuclear early warning center Serpukhov-15, Stanislav was responsible for reacting to a report that five American nuclear missiles were heading toward the Soviet Union. Rather than retaliate, Stanislav followed his gut feeling and went against protocol, convincing the armed forces that it was a false alarm. His decision saved the world from a potential devastating nuclear holocaust.

For a few crucial moments on September 26, 1983, Stanislav Petrov held the fate of the world in his hands. When an alarm suddenly went off at Soviet nuclear early warning center Serpukhov-15, Stanislav was responsible for reacting to a report that five American nuclear missiles were heading toward the Soviet Union. Rather than retaliate, Stanislav followed his gut feeling and went against protocol, convincing the armed forces that it was a false alarm. His decision saved the world from a potential devastating nuclear holocaust.

How the great Soviet superpower, crushed and humiliated, has been resurrected in the form of Vladimir Putin's new Russia.

George Carey's film shows how the Russian space programme was kick-started by a mystic who taught that science would make us immortal, and carried forward by a scientist who believed that we should evolve into super-humans who could leave our overcrowded planet to colonise the universe. Stranger still, Carey shows how those ideas have survived Communism and adapted themselves to the science of the modern world.

During the Soviet era, the people of Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan were used as human guinea pigs in the testing of nuclear weapons. Today the residents believe they are living with the consequences: one in 20 children is born with defects.

Marking the 70th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, historian Professor David Reynolds re-assesses Stalin's role in the life and death struggle between Germany and Russia in World War Two.