who on 12 April 1961 became the first human in space, aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1 (see Vostok). He completed one orbit of the Earth, taking 108 minutes from launch to landing. He died in a plane crash while training for the Soyuz 3 mission.

Born near Gzhatsk in the Smolensk region in the former USSR, Gagarin became a Soviet Air Force pilot and parachutist in 1957. He was named a ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’ and became an international spokesperson for his nation's space programme. The Russian space station Salyut (Russian ‘Salute’) was named to honour his memory.

http://www.gctc.su/ Biography of the peasant's son who became ‘the Columbus of the cosmos’. It traces Gagarin's education and training as a pilot prior to describing the courage with which he piloted Vostok 1.