was established by a decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet of April 9, 1962, to commemorate the world’s first manned space flight by Yury Gagarin.
On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin was launched into space on the Vostok spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, completing an orbital flight around the Earth which lasted 108 minutes.
In honor of the fiftieth anniversary of human space flight, by its resolution of 7 April 2011 the General Assembly of the United Nations declared 12 April as the International Day of Human Space Flight.