360Yuri Gagarin
In 60 words
Yuri Gagarin was a Soviet pilot who became the first human in space. On 12 April 1961, he orbited the Earth once in the Vostok 1 spacecraft, in a flight of 108 minutes. The son of a carpenter, he became a worldwide celebrity. The date of his flight is celebrated every year as the International Day of Human Space Flight.
Gagarin grew up on a collective farm and trained as a foundry worker before learning to fly. He was chosen from thousands of pilots for the first group of cosmonauts.
After his flight he toured the world as an ambassador for the Soviet space programme. He died in 1968 in a training jet crash, aged 34.