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TheInternational Day of Human Space Flight is theannual celebration, held on 12 April, of the anniversary of the first human space flight byYuri Gagarin (USSR). It was proclaimed at the 65th session of theUnited Nations General Assembly on 7 April 2011,[1] a few days before the 50th anniversary of the flight.
Yuri Gagarin crewed theVostok 1 mission in 1961, completing one orbit around Earth over 108 minutes in theVostok 3KA spacecraft, launched on aVostok-K rocket fromBaikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, USSR.
In the Soviet Union, 12 April was commemorated asCosmonautics Day since 1963, and is still observed in Russia and someformer Soviet states.Yuri's Night, also known as "World Space Party" is an international observance initiated in theUnited States in 2001, on the 40th anniversary of Gagarin's flight.
Also commemorated on this date is the firstSpace Shuttle launch,STS-1 ofColumbia on 12 April 1981, exactly 20 years after the first human spaceflight.
