Gagarin, Yury (Alekseyevich)

(born March 9, 1934, near Gzhatsk, Russian S.F.S.R.—died March 27, 1968, near Moscow) Soviet cosmonaut. Son of a carpenter on a collective farm, he graduated from the Soviet air force's cadet school in 1957. In April 1961, aboard Vostok 1, he became the first human to travel into space. The spacecraft orbited Earth once in 1 hour 29 minutes. Gagarin's flight brought him worldwide fame, and he was much honoured in the Soviet Union. He never went into space again, but he trained other cosmonauts. He was killed at age 34 when his jet crashed during a training flight.

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