Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin was born on March 9, 1934 in Klushino, a small village 100 miles west of Moscow. His father was a cabinetmaker, carpenter, bricklayer, and farmer, and his mother was a milkmaid. Later the family moved to Gziatsk.

While a teenager, Yuri witnessed a Russian Yak fighter plane make a forced landing in a field near his home. It was just returning from battle, its wings bullet-ridden. When the pilots emerged covered in medals, he was tremendously impressed.

Yuri studied in secondary school then went to a trade school and became a foundry-man before joining a technical school in Saratov. He was offered the chance to join a flying club. He took his first solo flight in 1955 and was frequently praised for his aeronautical skill.

While studying flying, Yuri learned parachuting, a skill that would later save his life when it was time for him to eject from the Vostok 1 capsule upon it’s re-entry. He took his first ride in a Yak-18 fighter plane. Yuri would spend the summer flying and living in a tent next to an airfield outside Moscow. At the advice of his instructor and mentor Dmitry Pavlovich Martyanov he joined the Soviet Air Force and went to Orenburg Aviation School where he learned to fly MIGs.

From the moment he learned about Sputnik’s historical flight, Gagarin knew he would join the space programme. In November 1957, at the age of 23, Yuri graduated with top-ranking honours from Orenburg and became a lieutenant in the Soviet Air Force. It was also on this day in his new officer’s greatcoat that he married his beautiful Valentina Ivanovna Goryacheva.

Yuri’s first post as a fighter pilot was at a Soviet Air Force base in the Arctic, where his first flights were made in the light of the aurora borealis. While he was stationed there, the Soviets launched Luna-3, which photographed the far side of the moon for the first time. It was 1959. He submitted his request to be considered for cosmonaut training and was approved. He and Valya and their daughter Lenochka moved to Star Town built just for the cosmonauts outside Moscow. .

Yuri was subjected to extremely rigorous training: physical, mental, and psychological. He underwent long periods in a sensory deprivation chamber, experiments with weightlessness, endurance in heat chambers, and test flights under stress with every reaction monitored. Yuri was devoted to his family. His second daughter Galochka, was born in early 1961. In the same year on April 12, Yuri became the first human to orbit Earth. The name of his spacecraft was Vostok 1. He was the first man to see that the earth was indeed round, mostly water and magnificent.

Following his return to earth, Yuri’s triumphant walk through Red Square in front of a crowd of thousands made him more nervous and afraid than his historic flight. He became a deputy of the Supreme Soviet, then appointed Commander of the Cosmonauts’ Detachment. He wanted to get back up into space and in 1967 he began training for the first Soyuz flight. However he never reached the stars again. On March 27, 1968, at age 34, Yuri Gagarin was killed when the jet he was test piloting crashed.