The Russian cosmonaut Yuri Alexeivich Gagarin (1934-1968) was the first man to orbit the earth in an artificial satellite and thus ushered in the age of manned spaceflight. Yuri Gagarin, the third child of Alexei Ivanovich, a carpenter on a collective...

Yury Gagarin Born March 9, 1934, Klushino, Russia Died March 27, 1968, Near Moscow, Russia Yury Alekseyevich Gagarin’s successful orbit of Earth was a technical triumph for the Soviet Union that came at the height of the Soviet-American rivalry...

Russian cosmonaut Yuri A. Gagarin was the first human in space. In 1961, the boyish-looking Soviet cosmonaut captured the attention of the world with his short flight around the earth. "He invited us all into space," American astronaut...

1934-1968 Soviet Cosmonaut When Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was born in 1934, his parents had no way of knowing that he was destined for a unique place in world history: the first human to travel in space. His father, a carpenter by trade, left the...

Russian Cosmonaut; First Human in Space 1934-1968 On April 12, 1961, at age twenty-seven, Yuri Gagarin, of the Soviet Union, became the first human in space. He completed one orbit of Earth before descending in his Vostok 1 spacecraft and parachuting...

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, (Russian: Ю́рий Алексе́евич Гага́рин, Jurij Aleksejevič Gagarin IPA: [ˈjurʲɨj əlʲɪkˈsʲejɪvʲɨtʂ gəˈgarʲɨn]; 9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968), Hero of the Soviet Union, was a Soviet...

The Kremlin has vetoed a move to launch a fresh investigation into the death of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, despite aviation specialists' belief that they have unravelled one of the 20th century's greatest enigmas. The rebuff comes as Russians celebrate...

I knew I was getting old when I asked a colleague how to spell Yuri Gagarin and she replied "Who?" Then again Yuri's global fame always did rest on a rather slender pinnacle. He was the first man in space, it's true, but his...

In one of their last days before blasting off in a closet-sized capsule, two Russian cosmonauts and a U.S. billionaire computer programmer enjoyed an array of earthly pleasures Wednesday _ a springtime stroll, a game of pingpong and a freshly cooked lunch.Engineers, meanwhile, were finishing...

Today is Tuesday, March 27, the 86th day of 2007. There are 279 days left in the year.Today's Highlight in History:On March 27, 1977, 583 people were killed when a KLM Boeing 747, attempting to take off, crashed into a Pan Am 747 on the...

Explores the history of the 1961 flight of Yuri Gagarin and the spaceship Vostok. Describes the enormous risk involved in the achievement. Provides biographical detail on Gagarin.