When did the First Man fly in to the space?

The Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made the first orbit of the eart on 12 April 1961 in a Vostok spacecraft. The trip lasted 108 minutes and landed within 10 kilometers of the planned descent point.

The first orbit by an American was made by Jhon Glenn in a Mercury spacecraft on 20 February 1962. Glenn was not the first American in space. For Alan Shepard had made a ‘space hop’ on May 5 1961. He reached an altitude of about 180 kilometers before returning to Earth. On 6 August the Soviet Cosmonaut Herman Titov made 17 orbits of the Earth.