Vostok 1 was the Soviet spaceflight that carried Yuri Gagarin, the first human to travel into space. The spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and made a single orbit of the Earth in less than two hours, almost entirely under automatic control. After re-entry, Gagarin ejected from the capsule and landed separately by parachute in the Saratov region. The flight was a triumph for the Soviet space programme, coming only weeks before the American Alan Shepard flew a short suborbital mission, and it spurred President Kennedy to commit the United States to landing on the Moon. Gagarin became a worldwide celebrity.
Before and after
- 24 February 1961Birth of Erna Solberg
- 7 March 1961Birth of Sanae Takaichi
- 23 March 1961Construction of National Library of Australia
- 3 April 1961Birth of Eddie Murphy
- 12 April 1961Launch of Vostok 1
- from 17 April 1961 to 19 April 1961Bay of Pigs invasion
- 18 April 1961Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations
- 29 April 1961Founding of WWF International
- May 1961Nirenberg and Matthaei crack the first word of the genetic code
More in Universe & space
- 22 June 1978Discovery of Charon
- 20 January 1986Discovery of Ophelia
- 24 April 1990Launch of Hubble Space Telescope
- 1998Supernovae show that cosmic expansion is accelerating
- 20 November 1998Launch of International Space Station
- 10 April 2019The first image of a black hole
The era
This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.