First man in space

We want to take a second and remember a man who was a true pioneer. The first man who left our planet and took in an amazing look of our planet from outer space and made the history books: on April 12 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin took off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kayakhstan, which is today managed by the Russian Federal Space Agency. Even though the spaceflight only consisted of a single orbit of the Earth, taking a total of 108 minutes from launch to landing, the trip had a huge impact on following missions and shocked the American public while leaving the Soviet public in communal joy.