MARCH 9 IS BIRTHDAY OF PLANET'S FIRST SPACEMAN YURI GAGARIN








Yuri Gagarin was born on March 9, 1934 in the village of Klushino of the Smolensk Region (western Russia), in a family of peasant background.


	In 1951, after finishing high school, he went on to train at the Saratov Industrial Technical College, from which he graduated in 1955. While a student, he joined an Air Club, from where he emerged resolved to pursue an aviation career. On finishing the technical college, he joined a military flying school in Orenburg (a regional capital in Russia's south-east). Later he served in a Northern Navy aviation unit deployed in the Arctic.


	In 1960, Yuri Gagarin was enlisted in the first-ever Soviet Cosmonauts Squad, where he successfully completed a rigorous training program.


	On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin's name was to be written into the history of the mankind. He accomplished the first-ever space mission in the human history aboard a Vostok spacecraft. It took the Soviet cosmonaut 1 hour 48 minutes to loop the globe and successfully land near Saratov on the banks of the Volga. The country's highest title was bestowed upon Yuri Gagarin for the mission - the Hero of the Soviet Union.


	After 1961, Yuri Gagarin commanded the Cosmonauts Squad and was directly involved in the training and practice of cosmonaut crews, as well as the control of Vostok, Voskhod, and Soyuz spaceship missions. In 1965 to 1968 he was deputy head of the Cosmonauts Training Center. In 1968, the first cosmonaut graduated with honors from the Zhukovsky Military Air Engineering Academy in Moscow.


	Yuri Gagarin visited many countries on a mission of peace and friendship.


	In 1966, Gagarin was made honorary member of the International Academy of Astronautics. He was decorated with many Soviet and foreign honors.


	On March 27, 1968, Gagarin died after a practice aircraft he was piloting crashed. He was buried by the Kremlin wall in the Red Square.


	To foster an enduring memory of Yuri Gagarin, a town in the Smolensk Region and an Air Force Academy based near Moscow were named in his honor. A Gagarin grant was established for Air Force school cadets. The International Aviation Federation founded a Yuri Gagarin medal. Also named after Gagarin were the Russian State Research and Development Testing Center for Cosmonaut Training and numerous educational institutions, streets and squares in many of the world's cities. In Moscow, the Star City, and Sofia, monuments of Gagarin have been erected. A moon crater and a planetoid also bear his name.