The headlines of that day uniformly expressed the same sentiments as the Huntsville Times: MAN ENTERS SPACE. “Soviet Officer Orbits Globe in Five-Ton Ship” — vaguely alluding to the possibility of warfare in the frontier. “‘So Close Yet So Far’ Sighs Cape” — referring to NASA headquarters at Cape Canaveral (“so close” was  right: the first American in space, Alan Shephard, was scheduled to launch around the same time, but delays pushed him back to May 5). “Praise is heaped on Major Gagarin” — he had won a major propaganda victory for the USSR.

On this day, April 12, in 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin took off in the Vostok I space capsule and became the first man to enter into outer space. He traveled in orbit for 108 minutes before re-entering the atmosphere and ejecting to float down on a parachute.

The Soviet Union exploited Gagarin’s feat long after it was eclipsed by other spaceflight advances, and in different realms. Nikita Khrushchev, in a fit of anti-religious zeal, reported to the Central Committee of the Soviet Union (the country’s ruling body), that even Gagarin, who traveled into space, saw no God.