First Human Flights.

                                            Russian Cosmonaut: Yuri Gagarin.

The first human spaceflight was Vostok 1 (East 1), carrying 27 year old Russian cosmonaut Yuri

Gagarin on April 12, 1961. The spacecraft completed one orbit around the globe, lasting about 1 hour and 48 minutes. Gagarin's flight resonated around the world; it was a demonstration of the advanced Soviet space program and it opened an entirely new era in space exploration — human spaceflight.

The U.S. first launched a person into space within a month of Gagarin's flight with the first Mercury flight, by Alan Shepard. Orbital flight was achieved by the United States when John Glenn's Mercury-Atlas 6 orbited the Earth on February 20, 1962.

Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, orbited the Earth 48 times aboard Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963.

China first launched a person into space 42 years after the launch of Vostok 1, on October 15, 2003, with the flight of Yang Liwei aboard the Shenzhou 5(Spaceboat 5) spacecraft