Russia is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first human space flight when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin completed a single orbit from Earth.
On 12 April 1961, Gagarin squeezed into a tiny capsule at the top of the rocket, stayed aloft for 108 minutes before parachuting into a field in central Russia.
The 27-year-old's flight dispelled fears that humans could not survive in space.
Before Gagarin blasted off in his tiny Vostok capsule, no one knew for sure if a human could withstand the conditions in space, the BBC reports.
Some believed that weightlessness would induce madness, that the G-forces on take-off and re-entry would crush the body, and there was the possible danger of radiation.
But when Gagarin's face and voice were beamed down from space, the world saw that the cosmos wasn't to be feared, but to be explored.
Russia is also remembering the man who masterminded the flight - chief Soviet rocket engineer Sergei Korolev.
Korolev died in 1966 and Gagarin in 1968 in a plane crash, the cause of which remains unsolved.
