школьные3 Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a prominent Russian cosmonaut. He was the first man who dared to make a journey into outer space. Gagarin was born on March 9th 1934, in a small village called Klushino, near Gzhatsk. Today this town is called Gagarin after the first Russian cosmonaut. His family was neither rich nor famous. Gagarin’s father was a humble worker and his mum was a milkmaid. Apart from Yuri, there were three other children in the family. The future cosmonaut had an uneasy childhood. As many people at those times, his family suffered from Nazi occupation. When he was a child, his father taught him to make toy planes. In 1941 he started attending a local school, but his studies were interrupted by the World War II. The whole village was occupied by Germans in November of the same year. However, life continued and Yuri grew as a smart and active boy. Together with his mother and his siblings he had to hide in a dugout during the war. Soon they moved to Gzhatsk and then to Moscow region. In 1951 he graduated with an honors degree from an evening school in Lyubertsy. In 1955 he graduated from the Saratov Industrial Technical School. During his student years he also attended a local aviation club. Gradually, aviation became his life’s work. In 1960 he started preparing for the flight into space. His first flight into space took place on April 12th 1961. Gagarin spent 108 minutes there in the spaceship “Vostok”, and this date became an international Cosmonautics Day. After this flight he became a world hero. He visited many countries and met millions of people. He died on March 27th 1968 but will be always dearly remembered in Russia and in many other corners of the globe.

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