The Yom Kippur War

October 6, 1973. Yom Kippur. The holiest day of the Jewish calendar. At 2 p.m. a blinding shower of high explosives rains down on a collection of concrete bunkers and observation posts sunk in the Sinai sand. Minutes later, 600 Egyptian tanks roll onto pontoon bridges to cross the Suez Canal. Simultaneously, 100 Syrian MiGs and Sukhoi bombers scream through the skies above the Golan Heights.

Burning at both ends, Israel was caught completely by surprise. In two weeks' time, the U.S. armed forces would be on Def Con III and nuclear tensions would be mounting with the Kremlin. The Yom Kippur War is a harrowing, minute-by-minute account of that fateful October when Israel was almost lost and the two superpowers stared down the barrel of the nuclear gun.