Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (Russian: Ю́рий Алексе́евич Гага́рин, Jurij Aleksejevič Gagarin; March 9, 1934 – March 27, 1968), Hero of the Soviet Union, was a Soviet cosmonaut who on April 12, 1961 became the first person in space and the first person to orbit the Earth.