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Yuri's Night: April 12
Human spaceflight was made possible more than 50 years ago when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was launched into space in the Vostok 1 spaceship on April 12, 1961. Exactly 20 years later, NASA's Columbia
Space Shuttle, the first of its kind, made its maiden voyage into space. It wasn't until another 20 years later, though, in 2001, that the first annual Yuri's Night
celebration took place to commemorate these milestones and inspire global interest in space exploration.