International Aviation and Astronautics Day

The International Aviation and Astronautics Day is celebrated every year on 12 April. On this day in 1961, Yuri Gagarin made the first human flight in space in the history of civilization. The first Bulgarian to fly in the open space was Georgi Ivanov. His flight was made on 10 April 1979, and lasted two days – until 12 April 1979. Through this flight, Bulgaria became the first nation on the planet to send its representative in outer space. The second Bulgarian-Russian cosmic flight started on June 7 1988, when the Soyuz-TM-5 went into orbit. The second Bulgarian cosmonaut – Alexander Alexandrov, was on the board of the spacecraft.