Who was the first man in space?

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (March 9, 1934 – March 27, 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who became the first person to travel into space. Gagarin completed one orbit of Earth in the Vostok 1 spacecraft on April 12, 1961. By reaching this significant milestone in the Space Race, he became an international celebrity and received several medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, his country's highest honor.

Gagarin was born in the Russian town of Klushino and worked as a foundryman at a steel company in Lyubertsy as a young worker. Later, as a pilot, he joined the Soviet Air Forces and was stationed at the Luostari Air Base near the Norwegian border before being chosen for the Soviet space program alongside five other cosmonauts. Gagarin went on to become the deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre, which was eventually named after him. In 1962, he was elected to the Soviet of the Union and later to the Soviet of Nationalities, the lower and upper chambers of the Supreme Soviet.

Gagarin's sole spaceflight was Vostok 1, although he was a backup crew member for the Soyuz 1 mission, which resulted in a catastrophic disaster, killing his friend and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. Fearing the death of a national hero, Soviet leaders barred Gagarin from additional spaceflights. He was able to fly normal aircraft again after finishing training at the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy in February 1968. Five weeks later, Gagarin was killed when the MiG-15 training jet he was piloting with flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin crashed near Kirzhach.