DOMINIC SANDBROOK: Can we be sure Putin won't press the red button?

Almost 40 years ago, in the autumn of 1984, the broadcast the most frightening film I've ever seen.

Set in Sheffield, Threads follows two ordinary families through the nightmare of an imaginary World War III.

While they are absorbed in their own domestic dramas, the radios in the background chart the gradual build-up of tension, the outbreak of hostilities in and the chilling steps towards full-scale conflict between the West and the Soviet Union.

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