Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space, on April 12, 1961. Born on March 9, 1934, as a young man he experienced a meteoric rise from tradesman and tractor specialist to pilot, ...

Fifty years ago this month, a young Russian military pilot, standing just 5’2” tall and wearing a comically over-sized helmet that would later become an icon, was strapped into a capsule atop the ...

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement yesterday that the Moroccan capital, Rabat, hosted an official ceremony on May 20, 2026, to unveil a bust of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first ...

It was the Soviet Union's own giant leap for mankind, one that would spur a humiliated United States to race for the moon. It happened 50 years ago Tuesday, when an air force pilot named Yuri Gagarin ...

Sixty years ago, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel in space when he completed his historic orbit of Earth on April 12, 1961. It was an extraordinary achievement, but ...

Yuri Gagarin, feted as a Soviet national hero for being the first man in space, was killed in a plane crash 50 years ago but the details of his death remain shrouded in mystery. On March 27, 1968, at ...

The first man in space, Russian Yury Gagarin, was killed in a mysterious plane crash a half-century ago, just seven years after his historic feat, a Soviet-era propaganda coup. Gagarin's 108-minute ...

There are a lot of things American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts have in common — not the least being a certain nonchalance about where and when they urinate. Alan Shepard, the first American in ...