... History . ... AND PEOPLES OF THE SOVIET UNION! ... For the first time in history a man flew into space. ... On April 12, 1961, our Motherland - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - for the first time in the history of humanity successfully achieved the first flight of man into space onboard Vostok spacecraft. The flight of a Soviet man into space is a great achievement of our peoples' creative genius, the result of free and inspired labor of Soviet people constructing a communist society. ...