Gagarin, Yuri Alekseyevich : 1934-1968

Gagarin, Yuri (1934-1968)
soviet cosmonaut, made the world's first manned spaceflight in Russia's Vostok I (1961), was born in Smolensk region of the U.S.S.R.  He studied at the international college at Saratov; later he went to the military aviation school at Orenburg.  Gagarin was a major in the Soviet Air Force before he circled the earth (in one hour and forty-eight minutes).  After receiving the titles of Hero of the Soviet Union and Pilot Cosmonaut of the Soviet Union, Gagarin met a sudden death in a test plane crash in 1968.

~ The Lincoln Library of Essential Information, Volume 2, Thirty-Fifth Edition, 1972, Biography, Page 1816.

You can visit the memorial page for Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin.