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I mean you're forgetting Henrietta Lacks, who's cells have saved over 10 million. Harrison with only 2.5. Lol her cells are literally in people...Doesn't get more direct than that huh?
@@-VOR I mean you're forgetting he stated "directly by their own hands" Unless she was doing the research on her own cells after she died, then it isn't direct. She didn't even knowingly give concent for her own cells to be used.
Yeah, I donated blood once, and I'll never do it again! They ask you all those annoying questions: "Whose blood is it? How did you get it? What's it doing in a bucket?" Those people down at the blood bank are so damned nosy!
I like that you went in to more options of saviours than of killers. There's been some real brave or incredible people in history and they deserve so much more love.
Of everyone featured in this vid, Vasily Arkhipov really is THE real hero. He literally put his life, the lives of all his family, his career and reputation right on the line, and thankfully he was right. That man had massive balls!
Add Stanislav Petrov who correctly decided that a us nuclear launch of 5 missiles was a glitch using logic similar to the wargames film. He was demoted, but saved the most lives of all
@@Greg-yu4ij Ah yes!! I've heard about the incident, but embarrassingly I had no idea what his name was, despite the fact that I wouldn't exist if it wasn't for his actions in 1983!
My wife needed the Anti-D vaccine for our 3 children. She's A- and I'm O+. Because both RH+ and O blood type is the dominant gene it was assumed that the baby would be RH+ as well (and they were all O+ like me). She had the vaccine I think twice for the first 2. Once at about 6 months and then again shortly after birth and 3 times with the last. Once at 6 Months, once at 8 months and then again just after birth. I've donated blood over 150 times, in a combination of full blood and Plasma. I joked to the nurses at the donor centre that is was a good way to have a quick nap after work, but when I was only 2 I was involved in a bad accident and lost a lot of blood. I was saved because of donors and decided to give back. Donors save lives. Whole blood only takes a few minutes to donate and you could save 3-5 lives. Plasma takes about an hour and lets you save 7-10 lives. Also, In Australia at least, you get a couple of pancakes or a sausage in bread and a cup of tea, coffee or chocolate after your donation, so please, if you can, donate and save a life or 10.
@@shuruff904 that's what I always called the nurses at the redcross. Then I blamed them choosing the blunt needles on me calling them vampires. :D can't wait till I can donate again. I had an operation a few months ago so have to wait 12 months before donating again.
@@chadrowe8452 Utilizing society but being unwilling to give anything is inane entitlement. Donating blood does absolutely no harm to you and saves lives. ua-cam.com/video/rvskMHn0sqQ/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/jKtOXvA14X4/v-deo.html
Louis Pasteur's work on germ theory is still one of the basic principles of all modern medicine so he's gotta be up there. His pasteurisation technique has made milk safe to drink so there's that too.
I have to agree, penicillin saved my life, also taught me how to take a pill, that liquid sucked so bad the 2nd time I went on it I got some pills I think I was 7?
I have multiple family members who are only alive because of the RH blood treatment, and if I get ever get pregnant I will likely need the treatment as well! That is so cool, I didn't know how much one man made an impact on our lives.
I like how this was all Soviets v Americans: Life, Death, War, and Nukes. Then, in the middle of it there's some bloke in Australia like, "Yea I donate blood, it's kind of a big deal."
There's another soviet who saved the world. I don't remember his name, but it was some time in the 1980s. He was manning a monitoring station at a nuclear missile site. He detected what appeared to be a nuclear launch from the United States and was given orders to retaliate. But he refused. It seemed odd to him that the United States would only launch one missile. It was later determined that the American missile launch wasn't a missile launch but some strange but natural weather phenomena that threw a false positive.
Stanislav Petrov. Yes, I don't understand why Simon didn't mention him either, unless he thought the two somewhat similar incidents were the same one. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
It was during Able Archer ‘83. NATO was doing a command post exercise that lead up to a simulated nuke launch. Also going on at that time was the shoot down of a Korean or Japanese civilian 747 by the Soviets, an increase in naval exercises in the Pacific Ocean, several coded communications between the US and UK about the invasion of Grenada, and Soviet spies thinking they saw warning signs of an impending US war. Looking up Able Archer ‘83 or 1983 the most dangerous year on UA-cam will bring up documentaries. The book Dead Hand describes the activities on that almost fateful night in very great detail, along with other WMD mishaps through the years that will keep you up at night.
My late mother was a rare blood type, rh negative, we always had a family joke it's alien blood. She knew it was special and gave blood often. Miss her so much.
What about Stanislav Petrov? Who kept his cool and didn't press the button when pulling guard on warning systems and accurately assessing the situation?
Petrov has been well and deservedly recognized for his courageous and sensible deed. Unlike Arkhipov, who died in relative obscurity in terms of his great deed, Petrov was identified and recognized for his actions during his lifetime. Turns out he was a pretty irascible, no BS guy who seemed to be irritated by the attention more than anything else. He maintained that he did nothing remarkable, only that it was all in a day's work for a competent and dedicated military officer. As for who saved the more people, it's unquestionable that had war erupted during Petrov's time the butcher's bill would have been vast, probably far exceeding that which would have resulted in 1962 when Arkhipov met his moment of greatness. This is unquestionable given the vastly larger arsenals of both the US and USSR at the time. Further, there was no place on earth that was out of the reach of the later Cold War weapons, while in 1962 most of the devastation would have been confined to Europe and Eurasia as the Soviet means of reaching the mainland USA was minimal at the time. Meaning that the deaths in the USA would have probably been "only" in the millions, while you could probably pretty mark of most of the population of the USSR had NATO launched against them in that era. I still say that Arkhipov's was the greater of the two deeds because literally anything could have precipitated total war between the superpowers at the time, including multiple Soviet officers already in Cuba with armed tactical nuclear weapons with command authority to use them if they saw fit. While war would have been worse in Petrov's era, it was still much less of a sure thing because the relationship between the USA and USSR was much more stable at the time. By all of which I mean to say that we came much much closer to worldwide immolation in 1962. It's utterly amazing that it didn't happen. Such a turning point in history could have been changed for the worse by something as simple as Arkhipov waking up that morning in a different mood. People can make their own choices, but Arkhipov has my vote as the man who saved more lives than any other in human history. Here's hoping that the situation never comes about that someone will have the opportunity to exceed Arkhipov's heroic acts.
First came across Blotkin reading Simon Montefiore's "Court of the Red Tsar" and immediately wondered why this monster is not better known. They're still finding graves at Katyn last I heard.
@@bobthegoat7090 We could say that about any scientific contribution. Simon mentioned Jonas Salk with Polio. Same could be said of him. What both did was take the leap and use what they learned and changed the world. The quote from Newton comes to mind in this regard: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
This Katyn deed haunts Poland to this day as many crucial intellectuals were included in the massacre, plus after the war by the purest irony Soviet Union got sway over PL for 50 years. Why did they do it? Poland kicked bolsheviks’ ass earlier, in 1920
Yes, they wanted Poland as a puppet buffer state, not as an independent neighbor. They also were thinking that the Germans would live up to the treaty. Oops, they got their karma.
poland didnt kick bolsheviks ass, it starved to death over 30 thousand russian soldiers that fought in ww1. So katyn was a payback. No reason or right for poland to bitch about it
Wow, I am Rh negative. I had to get that shot. That is so cool how to see that come about. God bless that man! Thank you Simon for bringing this guy to light!👍
My mother had Rh negative blood, and my dad was Rh positive. Of us kids, two are negative, and two of us, including me, are positive. Because of when we were all born, I think we were all just lucky. My two sisters have B- blood, and both of them have been specifically requested to give blood by local blood banks.
I'm Rh positive. Two of my children are Rh negative bc of my husband who is also Rh negative. Doctors explained to me that both children would likely have to take an added vitamin as well as regular prenatal vitamins when they're ready to start families one day.
@@stacyrussell460 Wow Stacy, to think we wouldn't have even known. My daughter is rh negative. The red cross has her on speed dial lol. My obgyn told me I shouldn't have more than two kids, this is back in 93 mind you. I told him no problem!
If lives directly saved by his own hands, probably Dr Michael DeBakey, the heart surgeon who continued to do surgery, likely including leading heart transplants, into his mid 90s. He is also known for pioneering the use of Dacron grafts to repair aortal aneurysms, now known as the DeBakey procedure. At age 97, he had an aortal aneurysm repaired by this procedure. He died at age 99. In his long career, he developed the first heart bypass machine, artificial heart and the MASH concept.
Thank you for the video. It's something I didn't know I wanted to know. I don't know how you keep up with all the channels but all the videos are great.
Was just about to say his name here, so was very pleased it had already been done. Tip to Simon, make a video about Norman Borlaug if you haven't already :)
I'm just here to make sure Borlaug is on the list. The political efforts today by the green left to ban chemical nitrogen fertilizers and to reduce burning of fossil fuels has the potential to kill a billion people.
I was pretty sure you were going to mention Stanislav Petrov the Soviet Air Defense Lt. Colonel who didn't launch when his equipment detected incoming missiles in 1983.
Just wanted to say, I love listening to someone who talks as fast as me. I always feel like most people talk soooo slow. I find myself speeding up many UA-cam videos.💕😊
I nominate Stanislov Petrov! With the way nuclear weapons were set up in the 80's, the world would have essentially ended, save for some (un)lucky people. That guy should have been given a peace prize
And he got demoted for his efforts! Let his mistake be a lesson to everyone to never attempting to utilize common sense and/or critical thinking in a military setting...
Ahoy there, Sir Simon! Great piece! Just wanted to let you know that at 5:09 when you refer to the Walther PPK, the picture you have is of Soviet Soldier, but he's armed with the 1895 Nagant Revolver. The same goes for the next picture. The Walther PPK is what James Bond was issued for the majority of his missions. The Nagant Revolver itself, however, was what inspired the game Russian Roulette. But I'll just have to leave the rest of it's history to you for a future video. Great job all around!
My father almost died at birth due to Rhesus factor incompatibility and lost an older brother to the same disease. As a thank you like the man in the video Dad is a life long blood donor.
Thank you for such an informative piece, which, as always, was delivered very well. Whether these were the people who murdered / saved the most people will always be a matter of conjecture (for some people any way). Thanks again for a great history lesson 👍🏻
To everyone who donates blood I thank you. You save lives every time you donate and that includes my life. I get IVIG every 4 weeks which is a medication made from blood donors. Plasma specifically. I used to donate but can’t because I receive blood products but to those who do donate I thank you! The plasma helps boost my immune system because I have CVID (no not COVID) which is a lifelong condition that makes you immunocompramised and very prone to pneumonia, sepsis, and GI infections. This Friday is my next round of IVIG and I was recently discharged from the hospital after a week due to double pneumonia that also made me septic. Thank you for your donations!
I'm just here to make sure Borlaug is on the list. The political efforts today by the green left to ban chemical nitrogen fertilizers and to reduce burning of fossil fuels has the potential to kill a billion people.
@@wingerding Before the 1960's millions of human beings died each year in famine. But Norman Borlaug's ideas for modern, efficient farming techniques, aimed at maximizing crop yields per acre, were disseminated through the whole world. Now, the number of human beings who die of famine each year is less than 10% of the pre-1960 levels. The human carrying capacity of the Earth was expanded by Billions. Some estimate that this single man saved a Billion human beings from starvation.
@@wingerding And now the leftie green folks want to delete some of those technologies farmers use. The farmers tractor protests in the Netherlands were over the government's banning of chemical fertilizers. If they just ban these things by force, they will cause famine. They will be responsible for creating a humanitarian disaster. And it is all because they know nothing of farming or of the Green Revolution of Norman Borlaug.
My mom is Rh and I am Rh positive. This man is the reason I’m here. But I was born premature and all of that came with it. Like I had all the odds against me and I’m still here.
So the guy that killed the most people in an instant was an American soldier following orders and the guy who saved the most people in an instant was a Soviet Russia soldier not following orders…
Good one. But if you add Norman Borlaug to the list (saved about a Billion human lives from famine by formulating and disseminating modern farming techniques) then you can add another life saver who was not following orders. He was not disobeying any, he was just not following any, either! :)
Not in any way to dimish the accomplishments of Salk, Borlaug, and other great scientists, but if Simon is having trouble saying a bombadier killed someone "with his own hand" while dropping a bomb, how is merely developing a vaccine or GMO crop saving someone "with your own hand"? That would be like giving Smith and Wesson credit for every dead cowboy, or Fermi and Szilard credit for all the A-Bomb deaths. It would be much more appropriate to give credit for the person actually distributing the virus - though not on a 1 for 1 ratio since not everyone given a vaccine has been saved since not everyone would have caught the disesase and died from it - as they are the person who actually used the device to prevent the death, acting like the soldier or executioner using the gun designed by Smith and Wesson. Again, i am not in any way trying to say what these scientists did isn't praiseworthy or amazing, just that it doesn't line up with what Simon said this would be about, especially with his strictness on the first part of the video.
I agree, if launching a nuclear bomb isn't considered "killing with your own hands", then PREVENTING to launch a nuclear bomb also isn't "saving with your own hands". I guess the problem is at what point things are taken from these people's hands. You can argue that the blood James Harrison gave can be considered as a direct save for each dose, while a vaccine developed from it might not be direct enough since it involves the effort of other people? But then again, even a blood transfusion requires the help of a nurse probably.
It should be pointed out that usually executions are NOT murders though they are killings. A murder, by definition, must be unlawful and thus, if it is under the auspices of a government and results either due to a lawful action during a war or an execution following a legitimate court appearance that ends with a conviction and death sentence it cannot be considered unlawful UNLESS it is considered a violation of international law. The problem is that what Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin did was a clear violation of international law (you cannot just go around executing prisoners of war for being officers in an opposing country unless they participate in actual war crimes and have been duly convicted in a court of law), which is why it was murder and NOT a legitimate execution.
If you think about it when you save someone you save all of The Descendants that person has after that point so it would stand to reason the person that saved the most number of lives is someone who pushed someone out of the way of a raging Mastodon thousands of years ago
If one agrees with the butterfly effect, you could argue that saving someone also kills all the people who would have been born if the person was not saved
Vasily Blokhin? FYI, he didn't use a 7.65mm handgun, It was a 6.35mm. From wiki; ["Then, without a hearing, the reading of a sentence or any other formalities, each prisoner was brought in and restrained by guards while Blokhin shot him once in the base of the skull with a German Walther Model 2 .25 ACP pistol."]
A different standard applied to who saved the most lives. I would think "saved by direct action" i.e. by their own hand would be more along the lines of Desmond Doss.
I'm on the fence about the others Simon mentioned, but I'm 100% in agreement about naming Arkhipov as the man who saved the most lives. I mean his act was direct and was a product of his hands and mind. But I still get your point. Arkhipov still didn't go out and save each individual life (meaning most of the humans alive at the time) with his own hands.
What about the Russian radar operator in the early 1980's who, when he saw the warnings that the USA had launched a nuclear missile at the USA, decided not to report it as a launch, believing it to be in error? The radar and all other information said it was an ICBM launch, but he felt it was bad information - refusing to authorize the launch of nuclear weapons. This was about 20 years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the world population was significantly larger.
Perhaps not killed by his own hand, but if we think of indirectly killing ppl then Charles F. Kettering might be worthy of a mention. He was involved in developing leaded gasoline and later use of freons (using CFCs) in refridgeration. While I'm pretty sure he didn't mean to cause lead poisoning & pollution & depletion of ozone layer, that's quite an unlucky achievement.
Thomas Midgley Jr also managed to indirectly cause his own death as well. He caught polio which gave him a degree of paralysis, invented a pulley system to help himself get out of bed in the mornings, which went horribly wrong and strangled him.
Maybe he didn't intentionally kill people with the development of leaded gasoline, but I don't think him and the company he worked for are guilt free in all those deaths. The dangers of lead were well known at the time, and during the development process they came up with another chemical that could be added to achieve the same. They rejected that formula because it was more expensive than using lead. Veritasium did a video on it, if interested: ua-cam.com/video/IV3dnLzthDA/v-deo.html
Sadly Vassily isn't the only Russian with the title of the man who saved the world. We have been close to the end a couple of times. Stanislav Petrov was in charge of a Soviet nuclear early warning center when there was a report of five American nuclear missiles heading towards 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 and refused to fire his missiles, which would have started WWIII.
There was another story of a false-alarm in the USSR where the guy working the silo checked to see if the US was really attacking or not. He (and the world) were relieved to find out that it was a technical error.
I am a mother of three children. Fortunately, both my husband and I have an O+ blood type. Our blood is an Rh+ universal blood type, which is why we've tried to consistently donate blood when possible. For our children it means that, since we are both Rh+, our children's blood was almost guaranteed to be Rh+ as well. It was a huge relief.
That Vasily fella certainly had more balls than any of the higher ups to say no, given that in the soviet era disagreeing with your superiors was often a death sentence, even if you were actually right all along...
Scientists being directly responsible for saving lives is also tricky, as I'd say it's the people that actually administered the drugs. If you go with the "by own hand" thing. :)
Perhaps "How many people would be dead were it not for them" might more accurately define their contribution to humanity. Still a pretty big feather to have in one's cap.
Sad that the man who single handedly averted World War III was met with adversity from his own country. I think all nations should have a federal holiday honoring him.
Well to support something that is called the Immunity Bundle you would have to be sloshed. Vitimin D gives no immunity to anything, it just helps the immune system function. Poor product placement.
Honorable mention for Alexander Marinesko of the Soviet submarine S13. Within 20 days he sank the Wilhelm Gustloff and the Von Steuben evacuating Germans from Poland at the end of the war killing a combined 14000 people. Also Stanislav Petrov. He prevented an all out exchange in the late 80s when most cities had 3-5 h-bombs pointed at them. There where about 80k weapons between the US and USSR.
Should’ve mentioned Christman Genipperteinga for most murders. He reportedly murdered 964 individuals over a 13-year period, from 1569 until his capture in 1581. The difference is he wasn’t an executioner for an army, nor was he firing missiles. He was a German serial killer and bandit of the 16th century, who lived in a cave and had few allies.
One could add to the list of those who possibly prevented WW3 the name Captain James Blunt, yes, THAT James Blunt. While the WW3 claim is debatable he certainly saved a lot of lives that day in Kosovo by refusing a really stupid order that would have resulted in direct conflict between Russian and UK troops. A conflict that I and a lot of other non-combatant contractors would have been caught up in (I, an aircrew was sitting on the tarmac in a Red Cross contracted cargo aircraft) so I'm pretty grateful for his actions.
I believe it was because the stupid orders came from an American General ( I think he ended up quite high in the Trump Government) and Cpt Blunt was a British officer so told said general to pound sand.
Since he died after the fall of the Soviet Union I wonder if Vasily was ever acknowledged and thanked by an American for his actions that day? I think he would have appreciated the gesture!
Simon has a beautifully tailored, neat beard in this one. I don't think I've seen it better. Very smart indeed. Shocking that he's not advertising his manscaped thing.
'Dapiek Absaroka' /'Crow Killer'/John Johnson. He didn't kill the most people, but he fought many men to the death, hand to hand. Hundreds, maybe over one thousand.
One suggestion on who saved the most lives: I would suggest it’s Norman Borlaug- pretty much an unsung hero. He didn’t do anything as dramatic as stopping war but people don’t remover the reality of the world was facing the certainty of mass starvation due to increasing population by mid 20 century, by him developing high yield wheat, a billion plus people in the developing world didnt die of starvation. A lot more people should know his name!
A man who should be considered in this list is Hein Severloh, he was stationed at „Widerstandsnest 62“ a fortification in the french coast in the omaha sector On the 6. Of June 1944 he fired around 12000 shots with his MG42 and on top many with its k98. How many soldiers he actually killed cant be determined clearly but it where possibly over 2000 on one day. He deeply regretted its actions and even became friends with a soldier he possibly shot at years prior. He died in 2006. His story influenced me deeply, especially the fact that it’s never to late to regret your actions and try to get a better person. Also we should remember Stanislaw Petrow who refused to obey its orders to start ICBMs in 1983 while the early warning system showed rockets on their way to Russia. It was a false alarm, he refused to start the Apokalypse, saved us all and wasn’t even awarded for its actions. He died in 2017.
My uncle was in the army stationed somewhere in Texas in October of 62 They were awoke in the middle of the night and ordered to get on trucks. The trucks were headed to Florida to be ready for an invasion of Cuba.
The person who first discovered how to ferment barley and create alcohol is possibly the biggest saver and enabler of lives It's argued (incorrectly) that the Sumerians were the first to create beer circa 4500-5000 BC and that producing beer was one of the primary reasons hunter-gatherers transitioned into co-operative farmers. There is evidence of deliberate brewing of alcohol as far back as 30,000 BC when beer is again considered a unifying force. If we are going to discuss who saved the most lives then you have to consider who did it first as without the original heroes the later heroes wouldn't have been born. The secondary effects of large-scale alcohol production had a profound impact on the human population from discovery to the present day. Would Pasteur be around to pasteurize or Fleming be around to create penicillin if alcohol hadn't first been used to treat them or someone in their lineage?
I don't even mind that he pronounces "vitamins" with a short "i"...I could listen to Simon Whistler talk about almost anything pretty much all day. This guy is just really really damn good at what he does.
Its aggravating how stupidly in the right Soviet Russia was on the larger scale. If SR was half as aggressive, half as full of BS as America was, war would have happened without fail
By that same saving lives premise, there was a similar situation in Sept. 1983 when Stanislav Petrov disregarded the Oko early warning satellites claiming a US Nuclear Missile attack was incoming, declining to pass it up the chain of command that would have undoubtedly resulted in a retaliatory launch from the Soviets. There was around 4.7 billion people on Earth at the time.
Vasili is a good choice, but the number of times there was almost a nuclear exchange, but for one man forcing others to wait is a long list. Far longer than it is good to know about if you want to be able to sleep at night, and includes people on both sides of the cold war.
I've noticed that a lot of what I've previously liked ends up being unliked as well as random channels keep getting the bell unclicked. This is the 4th time I've turned the notifications back on this month. Not sure if it's intentional or just a bug. Maybe little both.
Interestingly enough. The pilot or bombardier of the Enola Gay and Boxcar could be considered to have taken the most, and also saved the most with the same action. Ending the war in japan meant millions of people (and really all of asia) were saved from a russian and american invasion. So they took many lives, and saved exponentially more.
Atom bombs made no difference to Japan's surrender. The Highest decision making body of Japan still voted exactly the same as before, 3-3. The 3 hawks wanted everyone to defend Japan to the Death. The only common ground between all 6 delagates was continuation of the Emperor.
@@chrisgwynne1586 Stop repeating 70-year-old Soviet propaganda. After the dropping of the bombs, the Japanese were ready to throw in the towel, with the exception of a few lunatics that were overruled by the emperor and who killed themselves after the emperor’s announcement of surrender.
@@chrisgwynne1586 That's modern revisionist bullshit. You sound like you read six pages out of some forgettable guy's book to form your lofty opinion of why the war ended when it did. The atom bombs made ALL the difference to the Japanese ability to finally accept surrender. This the Japanese have said themselves in subsequent writings of the Japanese leaders actually involved in the decision making at the time. Finally, when confronted with something that could literally extirpate the Japanese people from the face of the earth, the ones wanting to make peace had an argument powerful enough to counter the traditionalists who wanted to fight on to some vainglorious end. What glory was to be had in a weapon that obliterated everyone and everything equally without regard to such things as courage and tradition, and could be used with impunity by the enemy? What defense did courage and tradition provide against a single aircraft full of men who could obliterate an entire city and still get back to the barracks in time for dinner without a scratch on them or a single bullet hole in their plane? Glory in combat against an enemy requires a means to actually fight back against that enemy. That, the Japanese did not have and they knew it. Once the bombs made their appearance the Japanese knew that the war would end not with courageous bayonet charges and personal combat, but with a series of creeping indiscriminate bombings that would have progressed relentlessly across their islands leaving hundreds of thousands of dead in their wake, and all without the Japanese being able to shoot down even a single bomber, or put a hole into even a single enemy soldier. The bombings also shocked the ones dropping the bombs. Once they had first hand experience at how brutally effective these weapons were, the Allied side finally agreed to a peace deal that would allow the emperor to continue as head of state in Japan. Prior to the bombings the inflexible position had been that the Emperor would be tried as a war criminal. After the bombings the demand went from unconditional surrender to "unconditional surrender...but..." It changed thinking on both sides. It's also irrefutable that the USA would absolutely have invaded Japan had they not surrendered at the time they did. Until the bombings Japan had even less reason to surrender the home isles than they had at Okinawa or Saipan. Had the invasion happened, the commanding general of the invasion, Douglas MacArthur, a man known for being one of the most sparing of his soldier's lives and actively sought minimalization of casualties as one of the strategic objectives of any campaign (as opposed to naval and marine commanders in the same theater who considered casualties as just another inevitable factor in each battle), even MacArthur said that the direct invasion of Japan would have led to a million US casualties. And the Japanese dead and wounded would have been many multiples of that number. Had those bombs not been dropped, the invasion would have followed forthwith in just a few months and in fact the preparations for it were already underway at the time. And all the horrors just discussed would have followed. All of that became moot when the first bomb detonated over Hiroshima. The bombs didn't change things? Tell that to the US Army and Navy personnel who had just finished one war in Europe and were already back in the USA resting and re-fitting for the invasion of Japan. When they heard about the bombings, they felt like condemned men who had just been given a last-minute reprieve. They viscerally understood something that you fail to see, in the face of literal mountains of evidence. By being the primary proximal factor in causing the surrender of the Japanese at the time, the bombs prevented the invasion of Japan. And yes, in that respect, the people saved on both sides by the acts of Paul Tibbetts and his crew likely vastly outnumber the ones who died. "Strategic bombing" is a euphemism for a murderous campaign to kill enemy populations indiscriminately in hopes of persuading them to give up the fight. The murderous firebombing of Tokyo was a vastly more horrific experience for the Japanese than Hiroshima was. And the fact is that killing the enemy's women and children with fire did NOT weaken their will to resist but quite the opposite. The strategic bombings of Japan and Europe were both an atrocity and a total strategic failure. That is with only two exceptions. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the only two strategic bombings of the entire war in any theater that truly achieved their stated strategic goals, that is taking away the enemy's will to fight. The ONLY ones. All the others were just a wanton slaughter of noncombatants for no good purpose save vengeance. In my opinion Curtis LeMay and his ilk should have been prosecuted for war crimes. But the irony is that the two atomic bombings, in actually bringing about the surrender of Japan, were not the least justified bombing campaigns of the war but the most. Really the only two that justified the means.
I’d add Sir Alexander Fleming who invented penicillin and antibiotics. And unlike modern pharmaceutical companies, he made the patent freely available for use.
Norman Borlaug is both our greatest hero, but also now we have over a billion more people thanks to him, making him our greatest villain at the same time.
Wasn’t there a similar incident where a Russian commander thought he was seeing launches from the US from satellite pics, but they were just the sun bouncing off the water? He kept his cool and didn’t order a launch.
Before watching I'm gonna say that Russian dude who refused to launch the nukes saved the most people, being all of the ones alive now and the ones that are still to be born, maybe except for Cher and proverbial cockroaches
I think that Allan Turing should at least get an honorable mention for lives saved since Christopher ended WWII earlier than it would have ended without the computer.
Question; in the video you state that plasma can be given every 2-3 weeks, which I have heard from other sources as well. Yet in the U.S. we can donate plasma twice a week. Why is that?
Vasily Arkhipov was featured on Mysteries At The Monument. While I can't find just where it is, there is a monument in Southern Florida honoring him and the event.
In my opinion, a more apples-to-apples comparison of someone's physical actions to save lives vs. take would be Desmond Doss; a US medic during WW2. who single-handedly saved 75 lives. Mel Gibson later made a movie of this incredible story: Hacksaw Ridge (if you have a light stomach, or difficulty with blood/gore, I would warn you in watching it).
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I mean you're forgetting Henrietta Lacks, who's cells have saved over 10 million. Harrison with only 2.5. Lol her cells are literally in people...Doesn't get more direct than that huh?
@@-VOR I mean you're forgetting he stated "directly by their own hands"
Unless she was doing the research on her own cells after she died, then it isn't direct. She didn't even knowingly give concent for her own cells to be used.
@@Anthadlas lol great fallacy
It's not a fallacy, it's the premise of the video. It literally says it in the title and is mentioned throughout
@@Anthadlas lol it's not one because YOU say it isn't? 😂 you need help figuring out which one it is?
Yeah, I donated blood once, and I'll never do it again! They ask you all those annoying questions: "Whose blood is it? How did you get it? What's it doing in a bucket?" Those people down at the blood bank are so damned nosy!
I know right?! Talk about ungrateful.
I got it from Charlie Kelly.
They prefer doing the extraction themselves , you're taking away their fun...
🤣
Not that much to ask
I had a neighbor who claimed he shot the most Germans in World War II. He was a photographer in the Navy
lol I get it. That’s funny
Nice Dad joke
My Grandfather once told me he saved a whole ship during WW2, when I asked how he told me he shot the cook.
So in the end he probably wasn't lying.
At high school basketball games, I put more points on the board than anyone else. It was my job to work the scoreboard.
I like that you went in to more options of saviours than of killers.
There's been some real brave or incredible people in history and they deserve so much more love.
Meh saving people when there's already too many of them makes killers more interesting to me. At least they are doing their part to cull the herd.
@@fvckyoutubescensorshipandt2718 I can only hope that some day you complete middle school.
1 Find out who Roy Benavidez is
2 believe That he didn't consider himself a hero.
Of everyone featured in this vid, Vasily Arkhipov really is THE real hero. He literally put his life, the lives of all his family, his career and reputation right on the line, and thankfully he was right. That man had massive balls!
If it weren't for him, his two comrades would have made it into this video.
@@oracleofdelphi4533 holy shit, you’re right
@@oracleofdelphi4533 True, and the world would be an incredibly different place today!
Add Stanislav Petrov who correctly decided that a us nuclear launch of 5 missiles was a glitch using logic similar to the wargames film. He was demoted, but saved the most lives of all
@@Greg-yu4ij Ah yes!! I've heard about the incident, but embarrassingly I had no idea what his name was, despite the fact that I wouldn't exist if it wasn't for his actions in 1983!
My wife needed the Anti-D vaccine for our 3 children. She's A- and I'm O+. Because both RH+ and O blood type is the dominant gene it was assumed that the baby would be RH+ as well (and they were all O+ like me). She had the vaccine I think twice for the first 2. Once at about 6 months and then again shortly after birth and 3 times with the last. Once at 6 Months, once at 8 months and then again just after birth.
I've donated blood over 150 times, in a combination of full blood and Plasma. I joked to the nurses at the donor centre that is was a good way to have a quick nap after work, but when I was only 2 I was involved in a bad accident and lost a lot of blood. I was saved because of donors and decided to give back. Donors save lives. Whole blood only takes a few minutes to donate and you could save 3-5 lives. Plasma takes about an hour and lets you save 7-10 lives. Also, In Australia at least, you get a couple of pancakes or a sausage in bread and a cup of tea, coffee or chocolate after your donation, so please, if you can, donate and save a life or 10.
Spoken like a true vampire
@@shuruff904 that's what I always called the nurses at the redcross. Then I blamed them choosing the blunt needles on me calling them vampires. :D can't wait till I can donate again. I had an operation a few months ago so have to wait 12 months before donating again.
I'm o positive but I'll never donate. It's my blood it belongs to me
@@chadrowe8452
Utilizing society but being unwilling to give anything is inane entitlement. Donating blood does absolutely no harm to you and saves lives.
ua-cam.com/video/rvskMHn0sqQ/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/jKtOXvA14X4/v-deo.html
I'd donate again but I found out the hard way not to unless I want to be loopy for a few days. It's to bad since my blood type is not common.
Louis Pasteur's work on germ theory is still one of the basic principles of all modern medicine so he's gotta be up there.
His pasteurisation technique has made milk safe to drink so there's that too.
Safer to drink. Milk isn't inherently dangerous no matter what the FDA would have us believe.
But is that "direct"? Oppenheimer isn't being counted on the killing side because he didn't hurt anyone by his own hand.
@@pakde8002 in fact many people that are lactose intolerant, can drink raw milk. So for some it’s less harmful.
I have to agree, penicillin saved my life, also taught me how to take a pill, that liquid sucked so bad the 2nd time I went on it I got some pills I think I was 7?
People were drinking Milk long before pasteurisation and living.Farmers still drink it straight from the cow.
I have multiple family members who are only alive because of the RH blood treatment, and if I get ever get pregnant I will likely need the treatment as well! That is so cool, I didn't know how much one man made an impact on our lives.
I like how this was all Soviets v Americans: Life, Death, War, and Nukes. Then, in the middle of it there's some bloke in Australia like, "Yea I donate blood, it's kind of a big deal."
There's another soviet who saved the world. I don't remember his name, but it was some time in the 1980s.
He was manning a monitoring station at a nuclear missile site. He detected what appeared to be a nuclear launch from the United States and was given orders to retaliate. But he refused. It seemed odd to him that the United States would only launch one missile.
It was later determined that the American missile launch wasn't a missile launch but some strange but natural weather phenomena that threw a false positive.
Stanislav Petrov. Yes, I don't understand why Simon didn't mention him either, unless he thought the two somewhat similar incidents were the same one. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
Yeah I thought this guy was going to be mentioned as well
@@jasontoddman7265 Yeah, after all there were more people alive in the world in 1983 so Petrov would have saved more people by that logic.
It was during Able Archer ‘83. NATO was doing a command post exercise that lead up to a simulated nuke launch. Also going on at that time was the shoot down of a Korean or Japanese civilian 747 by the Soviets, an increase in naval exercises in the Pacific Ocean, several coded communications between the US and UK about the invasion of Grenada, and Soviet spies thinking they saw warning signs of an impending US war. Looking up Able Archer ‘83 or 1983 the most dangerous year on UA-cam will bring up documentaries. The book Dead Hand describes the activities on that almost fateful night in very great detail, along with other WMD mishaps through the years that will keep you up at night.
They could have also detected spy plane and mistook it for a missile.
I'm R-H negative, the man with the golden arm, saved my life and my 3 children's❤
My late mother was a rare blood type, rh negative, we always had a family joke it's alien blood. She knew it was special and gave blood often. Miss her so much.
Sorry to bring it to you, but the negative isn't that rare.
Pretty sure you’re confusing it with RH null but I’m sorry for your loss
That’s cool.. and she’s a hero for donating blood.
@@ryacus yep, but nearly 15% of all people are RH negative. I'm A-, for example.
@@DoomRanger you could be right, I have a terrible memory I remember it was very rare
What about Stanislav Petrov? Who kept his cool and didn't press the button when pulling guard on warning systems and accurately assessing the situation?
Petrov has been well and deservedly recognized for his courageous and sensible deed. Unlike Arkhipov, who died in relative obscurity in terms of his great deed, Petrov was identified and recognized for his actions during his lifetime. Turns out he was a pretty irascible, no BS guy who seemed to be irritated by the attention more than anything else. He maintained that he did nothing remarkable, only that it was all in a day's work for a competent and dedicated military officer.
As for who saved the more people, it's unquestionable that had war erupted during Petrov's time the butcher's bill would have been vast, probably far exceeding that which would have resulted in 1962 when Arkhipov met his moment of greatness. This is unquestionable given the vastly larger arsenals of both the US and USSR at the time. Further, there was no place on earth that was out of the reach of the later Cold War weapons, while in 1962 most of the devastation would have been confined to Europe and Eurasia as the Soviet means of reaching the mainland USA was minimal at the time. Meaning that the deaths in the USA would have probably been "only" in the millions, while you could probably pretty mark of most of the population of the USSR had NATO launched against them in that era.
I still say that Arkhipov's was the greater of the two deeds because literally anything could have precipitated total war between the superpowers at the time, including multiple Soviet officers already in Cuba with armed tactical nuclear weapons with command authority to use them if they saw fit. While war would have been worse in Petrov's era, it was still much less of a sure thing because the relationship between the USA and USSR was much more stable at the time.
By all of which I mean to say that we came much much closer to worldwide immolation in 1962. It's utterly amazing that it didn't happen. Such a turning point in history could have been changed for the worse by something as simple as Arkhipov waking up that morning in a different mood.
People can make their own choices, but Arkhipov has my vote as the man who saved more lives than any other in human history. Here's hoping that the situation never comes about that someone will have the opportunity to exceed Arkhipov's heroic acts.
First came across Blotkin reading Simon Montefiore's "Court of the Red Tsar" and immediately wondered why this monster is not better known. They're still finding graves at Katyn last I heard.
Because he was a communist and not a fascist.
I immediately thought of Louis Pasteur. His work in making medicine and life safe from infection still saves lives every day. My opinion.
I'm not sure that could be considered direct though. Otherwise, you could say Oppenheimer or Kalashnikov would be on the list of most murders
@@SOASwig I agree but the way Simon framed it and extension to future lives that what brought Pasteur to mind.
Yes, he might be the winner.
In my opinion, that is not direct. His contributions were based on previous science.
@@bobthegoat7090 We could say that about any scientific contribution. Simon mentioned Jonas Salk with Polio. Same could be said of him. What both did was take the leap and use what they learned and changed the world. The quote from Newton comes to mind in this regard: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
This Katyn deed haunts Poland to this day as many crucial intellectuals were included in the massacre, plus after the war by the purest irony Soviet Union got sway over PL for 50 years. Why did they do it? Poland kicked bolsheviks’ ass earlier, in 1920
Yes, they wanted Poland as a puppet buffer state, not as an independent neighbor.
They also were thinking that the Germans would live up to the treaty. Oops, they got their karma.
Yup.
poland didnt kick bolsheviks ass, it starved to death over 30 thousand russian soldiers that fought in ww1. So katyn was a payback. No reason or right for poland to bitch about it
Wow, I am Rh negative. I had to get that shot. That is so cool how to see that come about. God bless that man! Thank you Simon for bringing this guy to light!👍
My mother had Rh negative blood, and my dad was Rh positive. Of us kids, two are negative, and two of us, including me, are positive. Because of when we were all born, I think we were all just lucky. My two sisters have B- blood, and both of them have been specifically requested to give blood by local blood banks.
I'm Rh positive. Two of my children are Rh negative bc of my husband who is also Rh negative. Doctors explained to me that both children would likely have to take an added vitamin as well as regular prenatal vitamins when they're ready to start families one day.
@@stacyrussell460 Wow Stacy, to think we wouldn't have even known. My daughter is rh negative. The red cross has her on speed dial lol. My obgyn told me I shouldn't have more than two kids, this is back in 93 mind you. I told him no problem!
@@hannahelorie2527 my oldest (born in 02) & my youngest (born in 09) have the Rh negative blood. My other two children have Rh positive like me.
I never knew I was RH negative until I was pregnant with my first child. Glad I found out and received that shot
If lives directly saved by his own hands, probably Dr Michael DeBakey, the heart surgeon who continued to do surgery, likely including leading heart transplants, into his mid 90s. He is also known for pioneering the use of Dacron grafts to repair aortal aneurysms, now known as the DeBakey procedure. At age 97, he had an aortal aneurysm repaired by this procedure. He died at age 99.
In his long career, he developed the first heart bypass machine, artificial heart and the MASH concept.
TIL the man who killed the most people and the man who saved the most are both named Vasily
And both were soviet
Thank you for the video. It's something I didn't know I wanted to know. I don't know how you keep up with all the channels but all the videos are great.
Norman Borlaug has to be up there on the list of lives saved. His crops helped feed billions of people.
Was just about to say his name here, so was very pleased it had already been done. Tip to Simon, make a video about Norman Borlaug if you haven't already :)
and now punjab suffers from an ungrateful india thanks to politics and so doe Punjab's soil
@@outi3852 you know Simon he's already got a video on biographics haha
Borlaugs grain inadvertently caused the 1971 disaster in 🇮🇶 Iraq.
I'm just here to make sure Borlaug is on the list. The political efforts today by the green left to ban chemical nitrogen fertilizers and to reduce burning of fossil fuels has the potential to kill a billion people.
I was pretty sure you were going to mention Stanislav Petrov the Soviet Air Defense Lt. Colonel who didn't launch when his equipment detected incoming missiles in 1983.
Just wanted to say, I love listening to someone who talks as fast as me. I always feel like most people talk soooo slow. I find myself speeding up many UA-cam videos.💕😊
James Harrison is the reason my siblings and I are alive. Thanks, dude!
I nominate Stanislov Petrov! With the way nuclear weapons were set up in the 80's, the world would have essentially ended, save for some (un)lucky people. That guy should have been given a peace prize
They will wipe out life on earth today exactly like the 80s there is no difference. Only a fraction of them available even today need be used.
He already did a video on him. That's probably why he went for Arkhipov in this one.
And he got demoted for his efforts! Let his mistake be a lesson to everyone to never attempting to utilize common sense and/or critical thinking in a military setting...
Ahoy there, Sir Simon! Great piece! Just wanted to let you know that at 5:09 when you refer to the Walther PPK, the picture you have is of Soviet Soldier, but he's armed with the 1895 Nagant Revolver. The same goes for the next picture. The Walther PPK is what James Bond was issued for the majority of his missions. The Nagant Revolver itself, however, was what inspired the game Russian Roulette. But I'll just have to leave the rest of it's history to you for a future video. Great job all around!
The second half regarding people who had been saved was more interesting to me and I would like to hear more about this topic. Great video overall.
My father almost died at birth due to Rhesus factor incompatibility and lost an older brother to the same disease. As a thank you like the man in the video Dad is a life long blood donor.
Title hooked me immediately; don’t even need content with that title
Comments made before watching the video are always helpful 🤣
@@louistart1173 Always. Especially dislikes back when we could see them.
So you'd just stare at a blank screen as long as the title was cool...? I get the point (kinda) but this doesn't make sense
Thank you for such an informative piece, which, as always, was delivered very well. Whether these were the people who murdered / saved the most people will always be a matter of conjecture (for some people any way). Thanks again for a great history lesson 👍🏻
To everyone who donates blood I thank you. You save lives every time you donate and that includes my life. I get IVIG every 4 weeks which is a medication made from blood donors. Plasma specifically. I used to donate but can’t because I receive blood products but to those who do donate I thank you! The plasma helps boost my immune system because I have CVID (no not COVID) which is a lifelong condition that makes you immunocompramised and very prone to pneumonia, sepsis, and GI infections. This Friday is my next round of IVIG and I was recently discharged from the hospital after a week due to double pneumonia that also made me septic. Thank you for your donations!
The irony of both the people who killed the most and saved the most people being Soviet is scary.
They are also both named Vasily
Also Stanislav Petrov, who stopped nuclear retaliation in 1983 caused by a satellite malfunction.
Praise be, Doc Whistler. Thanks for the upload.
Not even an honorable mention for "The Man Who Saved A Billion Lives" Norman Borlaug?
I'm just here to make sure Borlaug is on the list. The political efforts today by the green left to ban chemical nitrogen fertilizers and to reduce burning of fossil fuels has the potential to kill a billion people.
Who did he save?
@@wingerding Asia and Africa
@@wingerding Before the 1960's millions of human beings died each year in famine. But Norman Borlaug's ideas for modern, efficient farming techniques, aimed at maximizing crop yields per acre, were disseminated through the whole world. Now, the number of human beings who die of famine each year is less than 10% of the pre-1960 levels. The human carrying capacity of the Earth was expanded by Billions. Some estimate that this single man saved a Billion human beings from starvation.
@@wingerding And now the leftie green folks want to delete some of those technologies farmers use. The farmers tractor protests in the Netherlands were over the government's banning of chemical fertilizers. If they just ban these things by force, they will cause famine. They will be responsible for creating a humanitarian disaster. And it is all because they know nothing of farming or of the Green Revolution of Norman Borlaug.
Between his actions on the Titanic, in World War 1, and during Dunkirk, Charles Lightoller saved about 200 people single-handedly.
My mom is Rh and I am Rh positive. This man is the reason I’m here. But I was born premature and all of that came with it. Like I had all the odds against me and I’m still here.
So the guy that killed the most people in an instant was an American soldier following orders and the guy who saved the most people in an instant was a Soviet Russia soldier not following orders…
Good one. But if you add Norman Borlaug to the list (saved about a Billion human lives from famine by formulating and disseminating modern farming techniques) then you can add another life saver who was not following orders. He was not disobeying any, he was just not following any, either! :)
Not in any way to dimish the accomplishments of Salk, Borlaug, and other great scientists, but if Simon is having trouble saying a bombadier killed someone "with his own hand" while dropping a bomb, how is merely developing a vaccine or GMO crop saving someone "with your own hand"? That would be like giving Smith and Wesson credit for every dead cowboy, or Fermi and Szilard credit for all the A-Bomb deaths. It would be much more appropriate to give credit for the person actually distributing the virus - though not on a 1 for 1 ratio since not everyone given a vaccine has been saved since not everyone would have caught the disesase and died from it - as they are the person who actually used the device to prevent the death, acting like the soldier or executioner using the gun designed by Smith and Wesson. Again, i am not in any way trying to say what these scientists did isn't praiseworthy or amazing, just that it doesn't line up with what Simon said this would be about, especially with his strictness on the first part of the video.
Any Tom dick or Harry could administer the vaccines, medicine etc, not everyone or just anyone could invent them.
I agree, if launching a nuclear bomb isn't considered "killing with your own hands", then PREVENTING to launch a nuclear bomb also isn't "saving with your own hands". I guess the problem is at what point things are taken from these people's hands. You can argue that the blood James Harrison gave can be considered as a direct save for each dose, while a vaccine developed from it might not be direct enough since it involves the effort of other people? But then again, even a blood transfusion requires the help of a nurse probably.
It should be pointed out that usually executions are NOT murders though they are killings. A murder, by definition, must be unlawful and thus, if it is under the auspices of a government and results either due to a lawful action during a war or an execution following a legitimate court appearance that ends with a conviction and death sentence it cannot be considered unlawful UNLESS it is considered a violation of international law. The problem is that what Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin did was a clear violation of international law (you cannot just go around executing prisoners of war for being officers in an opposing country unless they participate in actual war crimes and have been duly convicted in a court of law), which is why it was murder and NOT a legitimate execution.
If you think about it when you save someone you save all of The Descendants that person has after that point so it would stand to reason the person that saved the most number of lives is someone who pushed someone out of the way of a raging Mastodon thousands of years ago
Also wiped out the most mastadons
If one agrees with the butterfly effect, you could argue that saving someone also kills all the people who would have been born if the person was not saved
@@99999Seb99999 this is getting deep
It's not my fault your honor, it was the guy that saved my life's fault.
You could say when Adam pushed Eve it caused the most deaths and births
I’ve watched scores of your vids. This is the best one ever.
Vasily Blokhin?
FYI, he didn't use a 7.65mm handgun,
It was a 6.35mm.
From wiki;
["Then, without a hearing, the reading of a sentence or any other formalities, each prisoner was brought in and restrained by guards while Blokhin shot him once in the base of the skull with a German Walther Model 2 .25 ACP pistol."]
A different standard applied to who saved the most lives. I would think "saved by direct action" i.e. by their own hand would be more along the lines of Desmond Doss.
I'm on the fence about the others Simon mentioned, but I'm 100% in agreement about naming Arkhipov as the man who saved the most lives. I mean his act was direct and was a product of his hands and mind.
But I still get your point. Arkhipov still didn't go out and save each individual life (meaning most of the humans alive at the time) with his own hands.
Thank you so much for uploading this video. It is helping me get through the pandemic!
What about the Russian radar operator in the early 1980's who, when he saw the warnings that the USA had launched a nuclear missile at the USA, decided not to report it as a launch, believing it to be in error? The radar and all other information said it was an ICBM launch, but he felt it was bad information - refusing to authorize the launch of nuclear weapons. This was about 20 years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the world population was significantly larger.
Agree 100%
Perhaps not killed by his own hand, but if we think of indirectly killing ppl then Charles F. Kettering might be worthy of a mention. He was involved in developing leaded gasoline and later use of freons (using CFCs) in refridgeration. While I'm pretty sure he didn't mean to cause lead poisoning & pollution & depletion of ozone layer, that's quite an unlucky achievement.
Thomas Midgley Jr. discovered/invented TEL and Freon's, Charles F. Kettering was his boss.
The list of people who did something leading to the deaths of millions is very long indeed.
My man, if indirect counts, you can do a lot better than leaded gas.
Thomas Midgley Jr also managed to indirectly cause his own death as well. He caught polio which gave him a degree of paralysis, invented a pulley system to help himself get out of bed in the mornings, which went horribly wrong and strangled him.
Maybe he didn't intentionally kill people with the development of leaded gasoline, but I don't think him and the company he worked for are guilt free in all those deaths. The dangers of lead were well known at the time, and during the development process they came up with another chemical that could be added to achieve the same. They rejected that formula because it was more expensive than using lead.
Veritasium did a video on it, if interested:
ua-cam.com/video/IV3dnLzthDA/v-deo.html
I love how Simon says, "vitamin" lol
I was really hoping you'd talk about Vasily Arkhipov, and I wasn't disappointed!
A posthumous thank-you to VASILI ARKHIPOV!
great video guy
Sadly Vassily isn't the only Russian with the title of the man who saved the world. We have been close to the end a couple of times.
Stanislav Petrov was in charge of a Soviet nuclear early warning center when there was a report of five American nuclear missiles heading towards 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 and refused to fire his missiles, which would have started WWIII.
There was another story of a false-alarm in the USSR where the guy working the silo checked to see if the US was really attacking or not. He (and the world) were relieved to find out that it was a technical error.
Yes he was a hero!
@@rationallyruby and his reward for saving the world was getting fired because he embarased the ussr
I am a mother of three children. Fortunately, both my husband and I have an O+ blood type. Our blood is an Rh+ universal blood type, which is why we've tried to consistently donate blood when possible. For our children it means that, since we are both Rh+, our children's blood was almost guaranteed to be Rh+ as well. It was a huge relief.
Why? I'm just curious. Also rh pos is dominant so you most certainly could have rh negative children.
That Vasily fella certainly had more balls than any of the higher ups to say no, given that in the soviet era disagreeing with your superiors was often a death sentence, even if you were actually right all along...
Scientists being directly responsible for saving lives is also tricky, as I'd say it's the people that actually administered the drugs. If you go with the "by own hand" thing. :)
Perhaps "How many people would be dead were it not for them" might more accurately define their contribution to humanity. Still a pretty big feather to have in one's cap.
I cried when I read about Harrison retiring from donating. My grandma lost 2 out of 5 children due to the rh factor.
Excellent and we'll researched as always!👍💙🥰✌
Sad that the man who single handedly averted World War III was met with adversity from his own country. I think all nations should have a federal holiday honoring him.
Starts at 1:58
For the first couple minutes after AG1 sounded like Simon was sloshed! 🤣😂😂
Well to support something that is called the Immunity Bundle you would have to be sloshed. Vitimin D gives no immunity to anything, it just helps the immune system function. Poor product placement.
oh darn, Has Simon tapped into my thoughts in some way? I had been wondering about this the other day ...
Honorable mention for Alexander Marinesko of the Soviet submarine S13. Within 20 days he sank the Wilhelm Gustloff and the Von Steuben evacuating Germans from Poland at the end of the war killing a combined 14000 people.
Also Stanislav Petrov. He prevented an all out exchange in the late 80s when most cities had 3-5 h-bombs pointed at them. There where about 80k weapons between the US and USSR.
Should’ve mentioned Christman Genipperteinga for most murders. He reportedly murdered 964 individuals over a 13-year period, from 1569 until his capture in 1581. The difference is he wasn’t an executioner for an army, nor was he firing missiles. He was a German serial killer and bandit of the 16th century, who lived in a cave and had few allies.
One could add to the list of those who possibly prevented WW3 the name Captain James Blunt, yes, THAT James Blunt. While the WW3 claim is debatable he certainly saved a lot of lives that day in Kosovo by refusing a really stupid order that would have resulted in direct conflict between Russian and UK troops. A conflict that I and a lot of other non-combatant contractors would have been caught up in (I, an aircrew was sitting on the tarmac in a Red Cross contracted cargo aircraft) so I'm pretty grateful for his actions.
I believe it was because the stupid orders came from an American General ( I think he ended up quite high in the Trump Government) and Cpt Blunt was a British officer so told said general to pound sand.
''Put your guns down, or I'll start singing !'' 🤣
Holy shit. I had no idea about this. Never knew he was in the army. Just thought he was a really good singer. Thanks.
@@rishikeshwagh He can ski, and has a helicopter license. He's like a girly-looking Rambo 😁
Charles Drew should be the person that saved the most lives. The technology you mention could not have been done without blood plasma.
Since he died after the fall of the Soviet Union I wonder if Vasily was ever acknowledged and thanked by an American for his actions that day? I think he would have appreciated the gesture!
Learning about Harrison was amazing. Thank you
Thank you.
Simon has a beautifully tailored, neat beard in this one. I don't think I've seen it better. Very smart indeed. Shocking that he's not advertising his manscaped thing.
Alexander Fleming has to be pretty high on the "lives saved" list.
Interesting subject
A biographics video of Vasili Arkhipov is now a must!
'Dapiek Absaroka' /'Crow Killer'/John Johnson. He didn't kill the most people, but he fought many men to the death, hand to hand. Hundreds, maybe over one thousand.
One suggestion on who saved the most lives: I would suggest it’s Norman Borlaug- pretty much an unsung hero. He didn’t do anything as dramatic as stopping war but people don’t remover the reality of the world was facing the certainty of mass starvation due to increasing population by mid 20 century, by him developing high yield wheat, a billion plus people in the developing world didnt die of starvation. A lot more people should know his name!
A man who should be considered in this list is Hein Severloh, he was stationed at „Widerstandsnest 62“ a fortification in the french coast in the omaha sector
On the 6. Of June 1944 he fired around 12000 shots with his MG42 and on top many with its k98. How many soldiers he actually killed cant be determined clearly but it where possibly over 2000 on one day.
He deeply regretted its actions and even became friends with a soldier he possibly shot at years prior.
He died in 2006.
His story influenced me deeply, especially the fact that it’s never to late to regret your actions and try to get a better person.
Also we should remember Stanislaw Petrow who refused to obey its orders to start ICBMs in 1983 while the early warning system showed rockets on their way to Russia.
It was a false alarm, he refused to start the Apokalypse, saved us all and wasn’t even awarded for its actions.
He died in 2017.
“A 2 minute ad… I mean Come on.” - Jimmy Valmer
My uncle was in the army stationed somewhere in Texas in October of 62 They were awoke in the middle of the night and ordered to get on trucks. The trucks were headed to Florida to be ready for an invasion of Cuba.
The man with the golden arm's help saved my second kidlet. I remember getting that shot 😖.
The person who first discovered how to ferment barley and create alcohol is possibly the biggest saver and enabler of lives
It's argued (incorrectly) that the Sumerians were the first to create beer circa 4500-5000 BC and that producing beer was one of the primary reasons hunter-gatherers transitioned into co-operative farmers. There is evidence of deliberate brewing of alcohol as far back as 30,000 BC when beer is again considered a unifying force.
If we are going to discuss who saved the most lives then you have to consider who did it first as without the original heroes the later heroes wouldn't have been born. The secondary effects of large-scale alcohol production had a profound impact on the human population from discovery to the present day. Would Pasteur be around to pasteurize or Fleming be around to create penicillin if alcohol hadn't first been used to treat them or someone in their lineage?
I don't even mind that he pronounces "vitamins" with a short "i"...I could listen to Simon Whistler talk about almost anything pretty much all day. This guy is just really really damn good at what he does.
Its aggravating how stupidly in the right Soviet Russia was on the larger scale. If SR was half as aggressive, half as full of BS as America was, war would have happened without fail
By that same saving lives premise, there was a similar situation in Sept. 1983 when Stanislav Petrov disregarded the Oko early warning satellites claiming a US Nuclear Missile attack was incoming, declining to pass it up the chain of command that would have undoubtedly resulted in a retaliatory launch from the Soviets. There was around 4.7 billion people on Earth at the time.
Vasili is a good choice, but the number of times there was almost a nuclear exchange, but for one man forcing others to wait is a long list. Far longer than it is good to know about if you want to be able to sleep at night, and includes people on both sides of the cold war.
Could you please begin to list sources in your videos? You are so well-researched, I don't understand why you don't.
I’d go onto their website I think they have them on there
I've noticed that a lot of what I've previously liked ends up being unliked as well as random channels keep getting the bell unclicked. This is the 4th time I've turned the notifications back on this month. Not sure if it's intentional or just a bug. Maybe little both.
Interestingly enough. The pilot or bombardier of the Enola Gay and Boxcar could be considered to have taken the most, and also saved the most with the same action. Ending the war in japan meant millions of people (and really all of asia) were saved from a russian and american invasion. So they took many lives, and saved exponentially more.
Atom bombs made no difference to Japan's surrender. The Highest decision making body of Japan still voted exactly the same as before, 3-3. The 3 hawks wanted everyone to defend Japan to the Death. The only common ground between all 6 delagates was continuation of the Emperor.
@@chrisgwynne1586
Stop repeating 70-year-old Soviet propaganda.
After the dropping of the bombs, the Japanese were ready to throw in the towel, with the exception of a few lunatics that were overruled by the emperor and who killed themselves after the emperor’s announcement of surrender.
@@chrisgwynne1586 That's modern revisionist bullshit. You sound like you read six pages out of some forgettable guy's book to form your lofty opinion of why the war ended when it did. The atom bombs made ALL the difference to the Japanese ability to finally accept surrender. This the Japanese have said themselves in subsequent writings of the Japanese leaders actually involved in the decision making at the time. Finally, when confronted with something that could literally extirpate the Japanese people from the face of the earth, the ones wanting to make peace had an argument powerful enough to counter the traditionalists who wanted to fight on to some vainglorious end. What glory was to be had in a weapon that obliterated everyone and everything equally without regard to such things as courage and tradition, and could be used with impunity by the enemy? What defense did courage and tradition provide against a single aircraft full of men who could obliterate an entire city and still get back to the barracks in time for dinner without a scratch on them or a single bullet hole in their plane?
Glory in combat against an enemy requires a means to actually fight back against that enemy. That, the Japanese did not have and they knew it. Once the bombs made their appearance the Japanese knew that the war would end not with courageous bayonet charges and personal combat, but with a series of creeping indiscriminate bombings that would have progressed relentlessly across their islands leaving hundreds of thousands of dead in their wake, and all without the Japanese being able to shoot down even a single bomber, or put a hole into even a single enemy soldier.
The bombings also shocked the ones dropping the bombs. Once they had first hand experience at how brutally effective these weapons were, the Allied side finally agreed to a peace deal that would allow the emperor to continue as head of state in Japan. Prior to the bombings the inflexible position had been that the Emperor would be tried as a war criminal. After the bombings the demand went from unconditional surrender to "unconditional surrender...but..." It changed thinking on both sides.
It's also irrefutable that the USA would absolutely have invaded Japan had they not surrendered at the time they did. Until the bombings Japan had even less reason to surrender the home isles than they had at Okinawa or Saipan. Had the invasion happened, the commanding general of the invasion, Douglas MacArthur, a man known for being one of the most sparing of his soldier's lives and actively sought minimalization of casualties as one of the strategic objectives of any campaign (as opposed to naval and marine commanders in the same theater who considered casualties as just another inevitable factor in each battle), even MacArthur said that the direct invasion of Japan would have led to a million US casualties. And the Japanese dead and wounded would have been many multiples of that number. Had those bombs not been dropped, the invasion would have followed forthwith in just a few months and in fact the preparations for it were already underway at the time. And all the horrors just discussed would have followed.
All of that became moot when the first bomb detonated over Hiroshima.
The bombs didn't change things? Tell that to the US Army and Navy personnel who had just finished one war in Europe and were already back in the USA resting and re-fitting for the invasion of Japan. When they heard about the bombings, they felt like condemned men who had just been given a last-minute reprieve. They viscerally understood something that you fail to see, in the face of literal mountains of evidence. By being the primary proximal factor in causing the surrender of the Japanese at the time, the bombs prevented the invasion of Japan. And yes, in that respect, the people saved on both sides by the acts of Paul Tibbetts and his crew likely vastly outnumber the ones who died.
"Strategic bombing" is a euphemism for a murderous campaign to kill enemy populations indiscriminately in hopes of persuading them to give up the fight. The murderous firebombing of Tokyo was a vastly more horrific experience for the Japanese than Hiroshima was. And the fact is that killing the enemy's women and children with fire did NOT weaken their will to resist but quite the opposite. The strategic bombings of Japan and Europe were both an atrocity and a total strategic failure.
That is with only two exceptions. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the only two strategic bombings of the entire war in any theater that truly achieved their stated strategic goals, that is taking away the enemy's will to fight. The ONLY ones. All the others were just a wanton slaughter of noncombatants for no good purpose save vengeance. In my opinion Curtis LeMay and his ilk should have been prosecuted for war crimes. But the irony is that the two atomic bombings, in actually bringing about the surrender of Japan, were not the least justified bombing campaigns of the war but the most. Really the only two that justified the means.
I’d add Sir Alexander Fleming who invented penicillin and antibiotics. And unlike modern pharmaceutical companies, he made the patent freely available for use.
I thought the guy who invented leaded gasoline (among other things) killed the most people.
Yeah the fuck up was strong with that one
I wouldn't call that murder though
Do you still have any podcasts?
Norman Borlaug is both our greatest hero, but also now we have over a billion more people thanks to him, making him our greatest villain at the same time.
Wasn’t there a similar incident where a Russian commander thought he was seeing launches from the US from satellite pics, but they were just the sun bouncing off the water? He kept his cool and didn’t order a launch.
wow, one of your best Vids, i remember the films for both Vasili events, they not always exagerating in these movies hehe
Before watching I'm gonna say that Russian dude who refused to launch the nukes saved the most people, being all of the ones alive now and the ones that are still to be born, maybe except for Cher and proverbial cockroaches
5:18 Why show pictures of a revolver, probably the Nagant, while talking about the Walther PPK?
I was wondering where the citations for this information is? I remember seeing some on Simon's videos before but I can't find them anymore
I think that Allan Turing should at least get an honorable mention for lives saved since Christopher ended WWII earlier than it would have ended without the computer.
6:41 this punchline was great 😂
Question; in the video you state that plasma can be given every 2-3 weeks, which I have heard from other sources as well. Yet in the U.S. we can donate plasma twice a week. Why is that?
Vasily Arkhipov was featured on Mysteries At The Monument. While I can't find just where it is, there is a monument in Southern Florida honoring him and the event.
In my opinion, a more apples-to-apples comparison of someone's physical actions to save lives vs. take would be Desmond Doss; a US medic during WW2. who single-handedly saved 75 lives. Mel Gibson later made a movie of this incredible story: Hacksaw Ridge (if you have a light stomach, or difficulty with blood/gore, I would warn you in watching it).