Yuri Gagrin, the first man in space, would have been celebrating his 75th birthday on March 9.

Gagarin was the first to make a manned space flight on board the Vostok spaceship on April 12, 1961. The flight around the Earth took 108 minutes, after which he safely landed in the Saratov Region. He died in an air crash in the Vladimir Region during a training flight on board a Mig-15 fighter plane together with Colonel Vladimir Seryogin on March 27, 1968.