Cosmonautics Day
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Image:Soviet Union-1965-Stamp-0.12. Cosmonautics Day.jpg
Cosmonautics Day is a holiday celebrated (mainly in Russia) every April 12 to commemorate the first manned earth orbit. It was established in the USSR on April 9 1962.
It is celebrated in honour of the historic first manned space flight made on April 12, 1961 by 27 year old Russian cosmonaut Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin of the USSR, who made one complete orbit around the Earth (lasting 1 h 48 min) aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1.
It was instant and overwhelming success of the Soviet space program, loudly resonating all over the globe. Gagarin immediately became not just a national hero of the Soviet Union, but a global hero too. All major newspapers around the globe published his biography and details of his flight. Moscow (and other large cities in USSR) held parades the scale of which were second to only WWII Victory Parades. The joy of millions was so owerwhelming that people cried and danced on streets, and strangers greeted and kissed each other.
Gagarin was honorarily escorted by a long chain of cars of high-ranking officials via the boiling streets of Moscow towards the Kremlin where he was awarded with the highest Soviet honour, the title of Hero of Soviet Union, by the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in a lavish ceremony.
