Fifty years ago today, humans reached new heights.
On April 12, 1961 Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space.
Gagarin had no idea what would happen as he boarded Vostok I.
What would he see, and would he come back alive?
And still he seemed eager to attempt the trip.
Now his last words before liftoff were said to be, "Let's go."
As you now, Gagarin's successful journey ended with a safe parachute landing.
But the 108-minute flight did more than carry him once around the Earth,
it launched a new era of human spaceflight.
It was perhaps the greatest journey one man has ever taken.
Propelled 50 years ago into space on a Soviet rocket, Yuri Gagarin made the first ever orbit of the Earth.
For 108 minutes, he was crammed inside his tiny capsule,
giving the world a vivid commentary of the planet far below.
I am continuing the flight.
The overload is somewhat increasing, as well as the vibration.
But I am feeling well, and I'm in great spirits.
I can see the Earth and can distinguish the features of its terrain.
Well this is just a replica of the actual Vostok capsule in which Yuri Gagarin made that first historic flight.
For some reason the original is kept in the museum of a state corporation and isn't on general public view.
But this space exhibition in Moscow is filled with originals,
including a number of contemporaries of Yuri Gagarin himself.
Men like Alexei Leonov, the first Soviet cosmonaut to conduct a spacewalk,
here to celebrate the achievements of 50 years ago.
In the past, we used to make a point of whether he or she was an American or a Russian or whatnot.
In my view, if we don't remember what happened 50 years ago,
we will forget everything in 100 years.
At the height of the Cold War, Gagarin's success was a high profile victory over the United States,
seen as evidence of Soviet domination in the space race.
He was dispatched overseas in what the Kremlin called missions of peace.
It made him a global icon.
And his flight on April 12, 1961
also led President John F. Kennedy to declare that America would put a man on the Moon by 1970.
Today, American astronauts are ready to acknowledge Gagarin's pioneering mission.
Well, there always has to be a first that follows on.
And at the time, you know, there was a big competition.
I always say here today, without Yuri Gagarin flying, I probably would not have flown to the Moon.
Everybody's friends now.
Oh, yes.
Gagarin didn't live to witness the hundreds who've journeyed to space since his first flight.
He was killed in 1968 in a plane crash.
But an untimely death has only added to the mythical status of the first man in space.