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The Sputnik 1 satellite was launched by the USSR . It was the first man-made object to leave the Earth's atmosphere.
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Two monkeys, Able and Baker, became the first living creatures to survive a space flight. Able, a female rhesus monkey, and Baker, a female squirrel monkey, were launched into space by the US on a Jupiter missile.
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The USSR sent Yuri Gagarin into space from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, in a Vostok spacecraft. He made a single orbit of Earth in 108 minutes, travelling at more than 17,000 miles per hour
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Valentina Tereshkova, a former textile worker, became the first woman to be launched into space by the Soviet Union. She circled the Earth 49 times during three days in space, and was reportedly injured during the landing.
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Alexei Leonov carried out the first-ever spacewalk from the two-man Voskhod spacecraft. Leonov's suit expanded minutes after stepping into space due to the zero-pressure conditions. When he tried to get back into his spaceship, he could not fit through the hatch and had to release a valve to partially depressurise his suit and squeeze back inside.
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Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the Moon. Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin spent two hours on the lunar surface setting up observation equipment and collecting rock samples. As Armstrong put his left foot down, he famously declared: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
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Russia launched Salyut, the first space station. The first crew to dock with the orbiting outpost later die during re-entry when the air leaks out of their Soyuz capsule.
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Bruce McCandless became the first person to do a spacewalk without being attached to the spacecraft. He tested a manned manoeuvring unit, which allowed him to travel away from the orbiter, during a 90-minute spacewalk.
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Assembly of the ISS began with the launch of its first module, Zarya, on a Proton rocket from Baikonur. The ISS is the largest artificial body in space.
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Dennis Tito, a billionaire businessman from California, became the first paying passenger to go to outer space. Mr Tito set off from Kazakhstan for an eight-day holiday aboard the International Space Station
