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On 12 April 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became an explorer like none other before him, going faster and further than any human in history, into what had always been the impenetrable and infinite unknown. Raised in poverty during the World War Two, the one-time foundry worker and a citizen of the Soviet Union became the first human to fly above the Earth in the vastness of space. In doing so he became an instrument in The Cold War – an ideological battle between the superpowers; East versus West, communism versus democracy.

In the year of the 60th anniversary, Dr Kevin Fong tells the story of how 27-year-old Yuri Gagarin came to launch a new chapter in the history of exploration and follows the cosmonaut’s one hour flight around the Earth.

The Soviet Union's triumph in 1961 was the event that galvanised the United States to win the Space Race, to send the first people on the Moon by the end of the decade. Yuri’s own ambitions to voyage to the Moon were frustrated by his political masters, a faltering Soviet lunar space program and two tragic accidents.

(Photo: Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Credit: Imagno/Getty Images)