Yuri Gagarin orbits the Earth
A human being leaves the planet and comes back.
- When
- Era
- Contemporary, Holocene
Gagarin completes one orbit on 12 April 1961 in a capsule he could not control, ejecting and parachuting separately on the way down — a detail concealed for years because the record required landing inside the craft. Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space in 1963; the next would not fly for nineteen years. Gagarin died in a training crash in 1968 at 34.