Today in Space History: First Human Space Flight

On this day in 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to fly into space. His one orbit of the Earth in Vostok 1 catalyzed the new John F. Kennedy Administration to boldly announced just six weeks later the goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth by the end of the decade. In the intervening weeks, Alan Shepard became the first American astronaut to reach the limits of space, though his flight was suborbital (John Glenn was the first astronaut to orbit the Earth, in February 1962). Gagarin died in 1968 in a military aircraft accident in circumstances that remain unclear even today.