What are the major events of the space race?

Answer 1

4th October 1957 - Soviet Union launches the first artifical satellite, Sputnik.

3rd November 1957 - USSR launches Sputnik II carrying the dog Laika into orbit.

19th August 1960 - Sputnik III returns two dogs alive from orbit.

12th April 1961 - Yuri Gagarin becomes first human in space on board Vostok I for the Soviet Union.

5th May 1961 - Alan B Shepard becomes first American in space on board Freedom 7.

18th March 1965 - Alexei Leonov becomes first human to walk in space.

3rd June 1965 - Ed White becomes first American to walk in space.

16th March 1966 - Gemini 8 flight succesfully achieves first docking in space - widely acknowledged as the moment the USA overtook the USSR in space expertise.

27th January 1967 - US astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee die in the Apollo I fire.

25th December 1968 - Apollo VIII journeys to the moon with astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders onboard as the first humans to leave the influence of Earth's gravity.

21st February 1969 - First test flight of Soviet N1 moon-rocket, counterpart to the American Saturn V, explodes during its unmanned launch.

20th July 1969 - Apollo XI Lunar Module Eagle lands on the moon and Neil Armstrong becomes the first human to walk on the moon. Widely seen as the end of the Space Race.

A FEW SUBSEQUENT EVENTS

April 1970 - Apollo XIII flight almost ends in disaster when the Apollo spacecraft is crippled by an explosion, but returns to Earth safely.

13th December 1972 - Apollo XVII leaves the moon with Eugene Cernan and Jack Schmitt the last Apollo astronauts to walk on the moon.

23rd November 1973 - Last test flight of Soviet N1 rocket ends in disaster when the rocket is destroyed 106 seconds into its flight, ending the attempts of the Soviet Union to send cosmonauts to the moon.