Which country was the first to launch a human into space?

The Soviet Union was the first country to launch a human into space.

On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin flew aboard Vostok 1. He completed one orbit of Earth in a flight lasting 108 minutes from launch to landing. The mission made Gagarin the first human to travel into outer space and turned him into an international symbol of the Space Age.

Vostok 1 launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, then part of the Soviet Union. Gagarin’s spacecraft was largely automated, although he carried a coded control key in case manual operation became necessary. He ejected from the capsule during descent and landed separately by parachute.

The United States followed with Alan Shepard’s suborbital flight on May 5, 1961, aboard Freedom 7. The Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991, but the historical achievement belongs to the Soviet space program rather than to modern Russia alone.