Yuri Gagarin was a Soviet cosmonaut and the first man in space. He never made another space flight and was later killed in a military plane crash. But Yuri Gagarin has a far-reaching story that, as I see it, really changed the world.
With a charming smile Yuri Gagarin was popular wherever he went. At the height of the Cold War he was really the Soviet Union's most effective weapon, and visited countries around the world.
He visited my native England. The initial plan was a visit to London but he accepted an invitation to Manchester, and charmed people wherever he went. The Queen and prime minister had originally not intended to meet him but, taken by surprise by his popularity, arranged a meeting.
John F. Kennedy was clearly alarmed by his popularity and he was barred from entering the United States. Yuri Gagarin spoke at the United Nations but he was taken there from the airport by helicopter so, not having gone through customs, he technically didn't enter the U.S.
America ended up landing the first astronaut on the moon. How much of a coincidence is it that Neil Armstrong bore a striking resemblance to Yuri Gagarin? The U.S. was well aware of Gagarin's popularity and was clearly trying to create it's own version of him in Neil Armstrong although Gagarin, by the time of Armstrong landing on the moon, had been killed in the plane crash.
After we had landed in the U.S., but before the astronauts landed on the moon, I remember my mother and father telling me about a man who had been in space and had visited our native England. Had I not been told that I might not have picked up a children's book titled "Space" in the school library. This is what began my interest in science and without it I might not be writing this blog.
More than twenty years after Yuri Gagarin's orbital flight times were changing. Mikhail Gorbachev took leadership of the Soviet Union in 1985. He began a "charm offensive", as well as extensive internal reforms.
Gorbachev's charm offensive took the world by surprise. It was clearly well-planned. I am sure that the earlier, highly successful, charm offensive of Yuri Gagarin, that was clearly feared by John F. Kennedy, was the model for Gorbachev's charm offensive.
Gorbachev made the world a better place. I consider him as the world's most important person of the second half of the Twentieth Century. But since Gorbachev's policy abroad was modeled on Yuri Gagarin that means he changed the world in ways that go far beyond being the first man in space.
On 9 / 11 four passenger aircraft were hijacked and three were flown into buildings. On the fourth aircraft the passengers rallied and stormed the cockpit of the plane, overwhelming the terrorists. All were killed as the plane crashed into a field, but their actions saved whatever their target was, likely the U.S. Capitol.
As they stormed the cockpit the rallying cry of the heroic passengers was "Let's Roll". What I have never seen written about 9 / 11 is that "Let's Roll" was what Yuri Gagarin had said as his spacecraft was being launched.
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