Transport & space · 1961

Gagarin orbits Earth

Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space on a 108-minute orbit.

On 12 April 1961 Vostok 1 carried Gagarin once around the Earth, landing in the Saratov region. It proved humans could survive launch, weightlessness and reentry. Weeks later President Kennedy committed the US to landing on the Moon.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 1

Sputnik 1957

What it led to 2

Watch

First Man In Space (1961)British Pathé · YouTube Yuri Gagarin: The first man in space - BBC NewsBBC News · YouTube

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Selected milestones in human travel speed Latest: 39.9k km/h (1969) Source: Wikipedia: Horse gait (gallop 40-48 km/h); Wikipedia: List of speed records in rail transport

Objects launched into space Latest: 4.51k per year (2025) Source: Our World in Data