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e. Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin [a] [b] (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who, aboard the first successful crewed spaceflight, became the first human to journey into outer space. Travelling on Vostok 1, Gagarin completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961, with his flight taking 108 minutes.
- Soviet (Russian)
- Polkóvnik (Colonel)
- Vostok 1
- Air Forces Group 1 (1960)
6 days ago · Yuri Gagarin, Soviet cosmonaut who on April 12, 1961, became the first man to travel into space. His Vostok 1 spacecraft orbited Earth once in 1 hour 29 minutes at a maximum altitude of 187 miles, bringing Gagarin immediate worldwide fame. Learn more about Gagarin in this article.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Becoming The First Man in Space
- Hero of The Soviet Union
- A Hero’S Tragic End
- The Truth, Declassified
The son of a carpenter, Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was born in the village of Klushino in Smolensk, Russia in 1934. At 16, he moved to Moscow to apprentice as a foundryman in a metal works but soon transferred to a technical school in Saratov. There, Gagarin joined a flying club and took to the skies for the first time. He graduated from the Soviet ...
Gagarin became an international celebrity, toured the world and was showered with honors by his country. Krushchev’s government awarded him the Order of Lenin and named him a Hero of the Soviet Union. Gagarin’s triumph was a painful blow to the United States, which had scheduled its first space flight for May 1961. What’s more, a U.S. astronaut wou...
Less than a year later, on March 27, 1968, Gagarin himself was killed when a two-seater MiG-15 fighter jet he was flying with Vladimir Seryogin, crashed outside a small town near Moscow during a routine training flight. Gagarin’s ashes were placed in a niche in the Kremlin wall, while his hometown of Gzhatsk was renamed Gagarin in his honor. An off...
Gagarin’s friend and fellow Russian cosmonaut, Alexei Leonov, was in the area on the day of the crash and served (along with Gherman Titov) on the board that investigated the accident. In 2013, Leonov announcedon the Russia Today TV network that another report on the crash, recently declassified, confirmed the real story: A second plane being teste...
- Sarah Pruitt
Apr 12, 2021 · Yuri Gagarin belied the West's austere impression of the Soviet Union – a charming, easygoing Russian with a ready smile. The first man in space became a powerful propaganda tool. It was the ...
Jan 11, 2024 · Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human in space. In 1961, he orbited Earth aboard the Vostok 1 space capsule, the first-ever crewed spacecraft. As...
- 4 min
- Rebecca Sohn
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Mar 27, 2018 · With that one Russian word, meaning “Let’s go!” on April 12, 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to become the first human to travel in space. Upon his return from his history-making single orbit of Earth, the Soviet Union treated Gagarin as a national hero. Completing many goodwill tours ...
Apr 9, 2018 · english. On April 12, 1961, the era of human spaceflight began when the Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth in his Vostock I spacecraft. The flight lasted 108 minutes.
