Today in 1961, aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin became the first human being to travel into space. During the flight, the 27-year-old test pilot and industrial technician also became the first man to orbit Planet Earth, a feat accomplished by his space capsule in 89 minutes. #todayinhistory #history #science #soviet #space #spacerace #orbit #vostok #ussr #cosmonaut #spacetravel #thisdayinhistory #ifls #iflscience