Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (born 9 March 1934 in Klushino, died 27 March 1968 near Novoselovo) was the first human being to travel into outer space. Born into a kolkhoz carpenter's family in the Smolensk region, he trained as a foundryman before turning to aviation. Graduating from the Orenburg Higher Air Force Pilot School in 1957, he was selected in 1960 as one of the first Soviet cosmonauts. On 12 April 1961, aboard the Vostok spacecraft (Korabl-Vostok 3KA No. 3), he completed a single orbit of Earth in 108 minutes, one of the defining achievements of the twentieth century. He described his journey in his memoir Дорога в космос (1961). A Hero of the Soviet Union and colonel in the Soviet Air Forces, he died at the age of 34 in a MiG-15UTI training accident on 27 March 1968.