Yuri Gagarin was born in 1934 in a village, now renamed Gagarin, near Smolensk in Russia. His parents worked on a farm, and his father was also a skilled carpenter. Yuri was the third child of four children. (1) __________ a teenager, he started work in a steelworks, and then continued his studies at the technical high school in Saratov. While there, he joined the “Aeroclub” and learned to fly (2) _______ his spare time. On leaving college in 1955, he joined the air force and learned to fly fighter planes. His bravery and skill led his being chosen for (3) _______ in the Soviet space programme. Gagarin was only 1.57 metres tall. His small size was an (4) ______, as the spacecraft he had to fly in, Vostok, did have enough room inside for big people. Vostok was (5) __________ from the Baykonur site in the Kazakh desert on April 12, 1961. Although his flight around the Earth (6) _____ only one hour and 45 minutes, Gagarin became the first person to travel into space and (7) ______ the Earth. After the (8) _______, Gagarin became a Soviet hero, and made appearances all over the world to promote the Soviet (9) ______. He then returned to his former job, flying fighter planes. But on March 27 1968, while on a training flight, he died when he lost (10) _______ of his plane and crashed. He was buried with honours alongside the wall of the Kremlin in Moscow’s Red Square