The world today quietly celebrates the International Day of Human Spaceflight commemorating the historic first spaceflight by a human -- cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union -- into outer space on April 12, 1961.

The date is celebrated as Cosmonautics Day in Russia, Gagarin's home country.

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In 2011, the United Nations General Assembly declared April 12 as the International Day of Human Space Flight in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the first-ever human spaceflight.

As the first human to journey into outer space in his Vostok 1 spacecraft, Gagarin completed one orbit of the Earth. Gagarin, therefore, became both the first human to travel into space, and the first to orbit the Earth.

Gagarin, who at the time of his historic spaceflight was a Lieutenant in the Soviet Air Force, died in a plane crash in 1968. He was only 34 years old. The Yuri Gagarin Medal is awarded in his honor.

Russia is marking Cosmonautics Day with ceremonies held at the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan (from where Gagarin was launched into space) and Russia's Vostochny space center.

Today, officials from Roscosmos (the Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities) and other space industry enterprises will lay flowers to the Kremlin wall, where Gagarin and the founder of the Soviet space program, Sergei Korolyov, are buried.

Roscosmos, which is the Russian federal agency responsible for the space science program of Russia, will hold commemorative events in 81 countries. Those events will include photo exhibitions, lectures and meetings with cosmonauts.

Moscow will be decorated by images of the Earth's orbit and planets of the solar system as seen from a spacecraft, as well as with pictures illustrating Soviet space achievements: the launch of Sputnik, the first artificial space satellite; Yuri Gagarin's flight; Alexei Leonov's spacewalk, the first by a human; the Lunokhod-1 lunar rover; Salyut-1 and Mir space stations.

TagsInternational Day of Human Spaceflight, Gagarin, Soviet Union, April 12, 1961, Cosmonautics Day, Russia, Baikonur space center i, roscosmos