For The A to Z Challenge this year, I am focusing on everyday holidays. Each day there are multiple unusual things to celebrate. Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day. I have also made up 5 holidays to coincide with the vowel days of the challenge. At the end of each post I will share a special song of the day for that day's letter. At the end of the month, these songs will be assembled in a to z keepsake playlist on Spotify. Every day is a celebration, let's unwrap today's together.
April 12th Yuri Gagarian is the first man in space
63 years ago today the Russians beat the U.S into space again. This time, Yuri Gagarian became the first person in space. This You Tube video shows some footage from the event.
Just in case you don't read Russian, the text below the video translates into English as:
On April 12, 1961, the Vostok spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome for the first time in the world, with pilot-cosmonaut Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin on board. For this feat, he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and starting from April 12, 1962, the day of Gagarin's flight into space was declared a holiday - Cosmonautics Day.
On September 27, 2010, by decision of the 65th session of the UN General Assembly, April 12 was proclaimed the International Day of Human Space Flight, which will be celebrated annually at the international level.
I decided to copy a couple of the you-tube comments and show them in Russian , and then in Russian printed phonetically in English and then finally translated by google translate into English.
The first comment is from @elenadushyna8975 from 1 year ago
Все молодцы!! И Королев! И Гагарин! И все остальные неизвестные, кто причастны к этому великому событию!!!
Vse molodtsy!! I Korolev! I Gagarin! I vse ostal'nyye neizvestnyye, kto prichastny k etomu velikomu sobytiyu!!!
Well done everyone!! And Korolev! And Gagarin! And all the other unknowns who are involved in this great event!!!
The second comment is from LarussaShudrova from 8 years ago
Спасибо за воспоминания! Спасибо! Помню, какую испытала гордость за страну, когда передавали по радио сообщение о полёте человека в космос. В душе всё пело.
Spasibo za vospominaniya! Spasibo! Pomnyu, kakuyu ispytala gordost' za stranu, kogda peredavali po radio soobshcheniye o polote cheloveka v kosmos. V dushe vso pelo.
Thank you for the memories! Thank you! I remember how proud I felt for the country when they broadcast a message on the radio about man’s flight into space. Everything was singing in my soul.
What strikes me about the coverage and the comments is the great sense of accomplishment. I lived in Russia for 2 years from 1992 to 1994 right after the Soviet Union was dissolved. It became clear to me fairly quickly is that people are very similar regardless of what country they are from and being proud of your country is certainly not something the U.S. has a monopoly on. April 12th Yuri Gagarian is the first man in space.
Gagarian died almost 7 years later in a routine training flight.
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The song of the day is Keep Me Running performed by Ashley Cleveland
Randy Stonehill wrote and performed the song on his 1976 album Welcome to Paradise. The below video features a young Stonehill performing the song.
Stonehill turned 72 earlier this year and I made this post to celebrate.
2 comments:
I remember that. I was 15, in high school.
April 12th is my birthday, so it's neat to find out what happened historically on this day. Thank you for the information!
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