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The USSR successfully launches Sputnik 1, the first Earth-orbiting satellite in history.
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The USSR successfully launches Sputnik 2, carrying a dog named Laika into space. They become the first nation to successfully send a living organism into orbit.
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The US enter the Space Race by launching Explorer 1, the first US satellite to reach orbit. It carried experimental equipment that led to the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belt.
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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is created in the US, replacing the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA).
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The US launch SCORE, the world's first communications satellite. It captured world attention by broadcasting a pre-recorded Christmas message from US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, becoming the first broadcast of a human voice from space
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The US launches Explorer 6, the world's first weather satellite and obtains the first pictures of Earth from space.
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The Soviet Union achieve a clear triumph in the Space Race. Aboard the Vostok 1, Yuri Gagarin makes a single orbit around the Earth and becomes the first man to reach space. He remained in space for one hour and forty-eight minutes before landing in Saratov Oblast, west Russia.
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Neil Armstrong and later Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin become the first men to walk on the Moon while their crewmate Michael Collins continues to orbit the Moon aboard the Apollo 11. This secured a victory for America in the Space Race with a televised landing witnessed around the world by 723 million people.