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Russia launches Sputnik 1
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Explorer 1, the first American satellite to reach orbit, is launched. It carried scientific equipment that lead to the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belt.
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Sputnik 3 is launched.
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Pioneer 1 is launched to a height of 70,700 miles.
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Luna 1 is launched by the USSR. It is the first man made object to orbit the Sun.
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The "Mercury Seven" astronauts are selected by NASA.
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Luna 3 orbits the Moon and photographs 70% of its surface.
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John F. Kennedy is elected the 35th President of the United States.
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Yuri Gagarin orbits the Earth once and becomes the first man in space.
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NASA announces the Gemini Program.
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Cosmonaut Valentia Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space.
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Ranger 7 transmits the first close range images of the Moon.
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Alexei Leonov spends 12 minutes outside of his Voskhod spacecraft performing the first spacewalk.
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Walter Schirra and Thomas Stafford, in their Gemini 6 spacecraft, make the first space rendezvous with Gemini 7.
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Luna 9 becomes the first spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon.
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Gemini 12, the last flight of the Gemini Program, launches with James Lovell and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin aboard.
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Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov is killed when the parachutes of his Soyuz 1 capsule fail to open properly following re-entry.
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Astronaut Clifton Williams is killed in a plane crash.
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Zond 5 is launched. It carried a biological payload (including two turtles) around the Moon and returned to Earth six days later.
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Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders begin the first manned journey from the Earth to the Moon. On Christmas Eve they take turns reading the book of Genesis in a broadcast heard around the world.
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Soyuz 4 & 5 perform the first Soviet spacecraft docking.
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Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin become the first men to walk on the Moon while crewmate Michael Collins orbits around the Moon alone.
