Space milestone
Vostok 1: first human spaceflight (Gagarin)
April 12, 1961
On 12 April 1961 the Vostok 3KA capsule lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome with Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin aboard. It was the first flight of the Vostok programme and the first human orbital spaceflight in history: Gagarin became the first person to reach orbital velocity and complete a full orbit of the Earth.