On April 12, 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made history by climbing into the "Vostok 1" capsule that took him to space, where he orbited the planet and then returned to Earth safely.
Yuri Gagarin was only 27 years old when he became the first human being to ever fly into Earth's orbit.
The rocket that carried Gagarin on the Vostok 1 spacecraft was actually a refurbished rocket, called the R-7 "Semyorka".
Despite narrowly escaping death by not being on the tragically aborted Soyuz 1 mission, Gararin later tragically lost his life in another crash. In 1968, he was piloting a MiG-15 fighter jet on a routine training flight when he and his co-pilot mysteriously lost control and the plane crashed.
The tragedy was covered up by the Soviet Union for many years. Recently, one of Gagarin's colleagues, Aleksii Leonov, revealed the truth.
The UN General Assembly, by resolution of April 7, 2011, declared April 12 as the International Day of Human Space Flight. /KosovaPress/
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