April 12 is an important day in the history of Russia: 57 years ago, on April 12 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into space when he launched into orbit on the Vostok spacecraft.
His 108-minute flight gave him a permanent place in the history books. At an altitude of seven kilometers, the pilot ejected. At 10:55 Moscow Time he parachuted to the ground 27 kilometers south of the city of Engels, the Saratov region in a place later called "Gagarin’s field."
Sergei Korolev, the outstanding designer of missile equipment and technology, who led the launch of the world's first manned spacecraft together with Anatoly Kirillov and Leonid Voskresensky, spoke about this event:
- Gagarin showed what a man is capable of. He not only opened a way into the unknown world to the people of the Earth, he gave them faith in their own strengths, in their possibilities, gave them the impetus to go with more confidence and courage. This was Prometheus’s deed.
Since 1962, we have been celebrating Cosmonautics Day on April 12. The holiday was initiated by Gagarin's back-up pilot, cosmonaut German Titov. He also proposed to address the UN on behalf of the USSR government to establish the World Cosmonautics Day. The government supported the initiative. April 9, 1962 Russia signed a decree on the establishment of Cosmonautics Day on April 12. In November 1968, the 61st General Conference of the International Aeronautical Federation decided to celebrate April 12 as the World Aviation and Cosmonautics Day. On April 7, 2011, the UN General Assembly proclaimed April 12 the International Day of Human Spaceflight on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the first step in the space exploration made by Yuri Gagarin.
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Since the first flight of Yuri Gagarin, about 550 people have been to the space.
A city (formerly Gzhatsk) and a district in the Smolensk region, a crater on the Moon and a small planet are named in Yuri Gagarin’s honor. There are also streets, avenues, squares, boulevards, and parks named after the first cosmonaut.
Since 2001, Yuri's Night, a special event in honor of Yuri Gagarin, organized by the Space Generation Advisory Council, has been held in many countries. The event is aimed at promoting public interest in the space exploration and inspiring young generations to explore the space.