In the vein of yesterday’s post about historical events that took place on my birthday, I’d like to point out that today, April 12th, witnessed two major milestones in the history of space exploration.

First (and perhaps most significantly), on this date in 1961, Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union became the first human to travel into space. Twenty years later, on April 12, 1981, Americans Robert Crippen and John Young piloted the first orbital space shuttle flight. (I have reluctantly come to accept that the shuttle program has mostly been an expensive disappointment, but the Columbia and her sister ships were still the first reusable spacecraft, surely a noteworthy accomplishment.)

According to Boing Boing, “Yuri’s Night” events are planned in cities all over the world to commemorate these landmarks in human spaceflight. Unfortunately, I just found out about all this and have nothing planned, so I plan to simply raise a quiet toast on my back deck this evening as I gaze out at the stars and remember what we puny primates can accomplish when we set our minds to it…