The last 10-15 years of medical research into treating brain aneurysms, and the increasing popularity of rapid-response stroke treatment protocols, without both of which I'd be either dead or permanently brain-damaged.
A cultural setting where a smart and personable working-class kid can more or less drift into a lucrative and not-too-challenging professional context.
A cultural setting where I can establish a household with my husband and have it legally and socially acknowledged as a family.
A cultural/technological setting where communication among like-minded folks across large geographic distances is trivial.
Stanislav Petrov is a rather famous person (of course only on Lesswrong, not in the real world).
But there is another Russian who saved the world: Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov.
On this day in 1962, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis Vasili Arkhipov prevented the launch of a nuclear torpedo and thus a possible nuclear war.
It's strange that Petrov attracts much more attention than Arkhipov. E.g. googling "Stanislav Petrov" produces 101.000 results, "Vasili Arkhipov" only 9.040 results. By contrast searching for "Britney Spears" generates about 295.000.000 results. Sorta depressing.
Anyway, let this day be the Vasili Arkhipov Day.