67 Facts About Yuri Gagarin

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space.

Yuri Gagarin was born in the Russian village of Klushino, and in his youth was a foundryman at a steel plant in Lyubertsy.

Yuri Gagarin later joined the Soviet Air Forces as a pilot and was stationed at the Luostari Air Base, near the Norwegian border, before his selection for the Soviet space programme with five other cosmonauts.

Yuri Gagarin was elected as a deputy of the Soviet of the Union in 1962 and then to the Soviet of Nationalities, respectively the lower and upper chambers of the Supreme Soviet.

Yuri Gagarin died five weeks later when the MiG-15 training jet he was piloting with flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin crashed near the town of Kirzhach.

Yuri Gagarin was born 9 March 1934 in the village of Klushino, in the Smolensk Oblast of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, near Gzhatsk.

Yuri Gagarin's older brother Valentin was born in 1924, and by the time Yuri was born he was already helping with the cattle on the farm.

Yuri Gagarin's sister Zoya, born in 1927, helped take care of "Yura" and their youngest brother Boris, born in 1936.

In retaliation, Yuri Gagarin sabotaged the soldier's work; he poured soil into the tank batteries gathered to be recharged and randomly mixed the different chemical supplies intended for the task.

The rest of the Gagarin family believed the two older children were dead, and Yuri became ill with "grief and hunger"; he was beaten for refusing to work for the German forces and spent the remainder of the war at a hospital as a patient and later as an orderly.

Yuri Gagarin's mother was hospitalized during the same period, after a German soldier gashed her leg with a scythe.

In 1946, the family moved to Gzhatsk, where Yuri Gagarin continued his education.

Yuri Gagarin was part of a group of children that built model aeroplanes.

Yuri Gagarin was fascinated with aircraft from a young age and his interest in aeroplanes was energized after a Yakovlev fighter plane crash landed in Klushino during the war.

In 1950, aged 16, Yuri Gagarin began an apprenticeship as a foundryman at a steel plant in Lyubertsy, near Moscow, and enrolled at a local "young workers" school for seventh-grade evening classes.

Yuri Gagarin earned extra money as a part-time dock labourer on the Volga River.

In 1955, Yuri Gagarin was accepted to the First Chkalovsky Higher Air Force Pilots School in Orenburg.

Yuri Gagarin initially began training on the Yak-18 already familiar to him and later graduated to training on the MiG-15 in February 1956.

Yuri Gagarin twice struggled to land the two-seater trainer aircraft, and risked dismissal from pilot training.

On 5 November 1957, Yuri Gagarin was commissioned a lieutenant in the Soviet Air Forces, having accumulated 166 hours and 47 minutes of flight time.

Yuri Gagarin graduated from flight school the next day and was posted to the Luostari Air Base, close to the Norwegian border in Murmansk Oblast, for a two-year assignment with the Northern Fleet.

Yuri Gagarin was promoted to the rank of senior lieutenant on 6 November 1959, three weeks after he was interviewed by a medical commission for qualification to the space programme.

The first twelve, including Yuri Gagarin, were approved on 7 March 1960 and eight more were added in a series of subsequent orders issued until June.

Yuri Gagarin began training at the Khodynka Airfield in central Moscow on 15 March 1960.

Yuri Gagarin was a candidate favoured by his peers; when they were asked to vote anonymously for a candidate besides themselves they would like to be the first to fly, all but three chose Yuri Gagarin.

One of these candidates, Yevgeny Khrunov, believed that Yuri Gagarin was very focused and was demanding of himself and others when necessary.

On 30 May 1960, Yuri Gagarin was further selected for an accelerated training group, known as the Vanguard Six or Sochi Six, from which the first cosmonauts of the Vostok programme would be chosen.

Yuri Gagarin enrolled in September 1960 and did not earn his specialist diploma until early 1968.

Yuri Gagarin trained for the upcoming flight by experiencing g-forces in a centrifuge.

The radio communication between the launch control room and Yuri Gagarin included the following dialogue at the moment of rocket launch:.

Yuri Gagarin wrote in his autobiography released the same year that he sang the tune "The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows" during re-entry.

Yuri Gagarin was recognised as a qualified Military Pilot 1st Class and promoted to the rank of major in a special order given during his flight.

At about 7,000 metres, Yuri Gagarin ejected from the descending capsule as planned and landed using a parachute.

Yuri Gagarin is internationally recognised as the first human in space and first to orbit the Earth.

Yuri Gagarin's flight was a triumph for the Soviet space programme and he became a national hero of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, as well as a worldwide celebrity.

Yuri Gagarin was escorted in a long motorcade of high-ranking officials through the streets of Moscow to the Kremlin where, in a lavish ceremony, Nikita Khrushchev awarded him the title Hero of the Soviet Union.

Yuri Gagarin gained a reputation as an adept public figure and was noted for his charismatic smile.

Yuri Gagarin visited the United Kingdom three months after the Vostok 1 mission, going to London and Manchester.

Yuri Gagarin toured widely abroad, accepting the invitation of about 30 countries in the years following his flight.

In 1962, Yuri Gagarin began serving as a deputy to the Soviet of the Union, and was elected to the Central Committee of the Young Communist League.

Yuri Gagarin later returned to Star City, the cosmonaut facility, where he spent several years working on designs for a reusable spacecraft.

Yuri Gagarin became a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Forces on 12 June 1962, and received the rank of colonel on 6 November 1963.

Kamanin was concerned by Yuri Gagarin's drinking and believed the sudden rise to fame had taken its toll on the cosmonaut.

Yuri Gagarin accompanied Komarov to the rocket before launch and relayed instructions to Komarov from ground control following multiple system failures aboard the spacecraft.

Yuri Gagarin was grounded from flying aircraft solo, a demotion he worked hard to lift.

Yuri Gagarin was temporarily relieved of duties to focus on academics with the promise that he would be able to resume flight training.

In 1957, while a cadet in flight school, Yuri Gagarin met Valentina Goryacheva at the May Day celebrations at the Red Square in Moscow.

Yuri Gagarin was a medical technician who had graduated from Orenburg Medical School.

Yuri Gagarin attempted to escape through a window and jumped off a second floor balcony.

Yuri Gagarin was a basketball fan and coached the Saratov Industrial Technical School team, as well as being a referee.

Some Soviet sources have said that Yuri Gagarin commented during his space flight, "I don't see any God up here," though no such words appear in the verbatim record of his conversations with Earth stations during the spaceflight.

Petrov said Yuri Gagarin had been baptised into the Russian Orthodox Church as a child, and a 2011 Foma magazine article quoted the rector of the Orthodox Church in Star City saying, "Yuri Gagarin baptized his elder daughter Yelena shortly before his space flight; and his family used to celebrate Christmas and Easter and keep icons in the house".

Yuri Gagarin's planned flight activities needed clear weather and no outboard tanks.

The investigation concluded Yuri Gagarin's aircraft entered a spin, either due to a bird strike or because of a sudden move to avoid another aircraft.

Alexei Leonov, who was a member of a state commission established to investigate Yuri Gagarin's death, was conducting parachute training sessions that day and heard "two loud booms in the distance".

Yuri Gagarin believes that a Sukhoi Su-15 was flying below its minimum altitude and, "without realizing it because of the terrible weather conditions, he passed within 10 or 20 meters of Yuri and Seregin's plane while breaking the sound barrier".

On 14 April 1961, Yuri Gagarin was honoured with a 12-mile parade attended by millions of people that concluded at the Red Square.

Yuri Gagarin had been awarded four Soviet commemorative medals over the course of his career.

Yuri Gagarin was honoured as a Hero of Socialist Labour from Czechoslovakia on 29 April 1961, and Hero of Socialist Labour the same year.

Yuri Gagarin was awarded the 1960 Gold Air Medal and the 1961 De la Vaulx Medal from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale in Switzerland.

Yuri Gagarin received numerous awards from other nations that year, including the Star of the Republic of Indonesia, the Order of the Cross of Grunwald in Poland, the Order of the Flag of the Republic of Hungary, the Hero of Labour award from Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the Italian Columbus Day Medal, and a Gold Medal from the British Interplanetary Society.

The town of Yuri Gagarin, Armenia was renamed in his honour in 1961.

Yuri Gagarin has been honoured on the Moon by astronauts and astronomers.

Yuri Gagarin was inducted as a member of the 1976 inaugural class of the International Space Hall of Fame in New Mexico.

Vessels have been named for Gagarin; Soviet tracking ship Kosmonavt Yuriy Gagarin was built in 1971 and the Armenian airline Armavia named their first Sukhoi Superjet 100 in his honour in 2011.

Previous attempts at portraying Yuri Gagarin were disallowed; his family took legal action over his portrayal in a fictional drama and vetoed a musical.

In 2011, a statue of Yuri Gagarin was unveiled at Admiralty Arch in The Mall in London, opposite the permanent sculpture of James Cook.