* 1961 – The Russian ( Soviet ) cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into outer space and perform the first manned orbital flight, in Vostok 3KA-2 ( Vostok 1 ).

* 1967 – Soviet space program: Soyuz 1 ( Russian: Союз 1, Union 1 ) is a manned spaceflight, Launched into orbit carrying cosmonaut Colonel Vladimir Komarov.

* 1942 – Valentin Lebedev, Russian cosmonaut

The Soviet ( now Russian ) definition is the time when the outer airlock hatch is open and the cosmonaut is in a vacuum.

* 1994 – Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov on Soyuz TM-18 leaves for Mir.

* August 24 – Salizhan Sharipov, Russian cosmonaut

** Aleksei Gubarev, Russian cosmonaut

* May 25 – Georgy Grechko, Russian cosmonaut

** Gennadi Sarafanov, Russian cosmonaut ( d. 2005 )

** Valentin Lebedev, Russian cosmonaut

** Pyotr Klimuk, Russian cosmonaut

* March 23 – Valentin Bondarenko, Russian cosmonaut ( b. 1937 )

** Vasili Lazarev, Russian cosmonaut ( d. 1990 )

** Anatoly Filipchenko, Russian cosmonaut

** Georgi Dobrovolski, Russian cosmonaut ( d. 1971 )

** Yuri Senkevich, Russian cosmonaut ( d. 2003 )

* March 6 – Valentina Tereshkova, Russian cosmonaut, first woman in space

* November 26 – Boris Yegorov, Russian cosmonaut ( d. 1994 )

* September 18 – Nikolai Rukavishnikov, Russian cosmonaut ( d. 2002 )

** Oleg Makarov, Russian cosmonaut ( d. 2003 )

* June 19 – Viktor Patsayev, Russian cosmonaut ( d. 1971 )

* September 10 – Yevgeny Khrunov, Russian cosmonaut ( d. 2000 )

* April 29 – Nikolai Budarin, Russian cosmonaut

* June 22 – Yuri Artyukhin, Russian cosmonaut ( d. 1998 )

The rock band from Pasadena, Ozma plays a balalaika on the song " Flight Of Yuri Gagarin "; it is derived from their partially Russian themed album Double Donkey Disc.

* 1937 – Yuri Manin, Russian mathematician

In March 2001 Russian Independent Television NTV interviewed a previously unknown grandson living in Novokuznetsk, Yuri Davydov, who stated that his father had told him of his lineage, but, was told to keep quiet because of the campaign against Stalin's cult of personality.

* 1930 – Yuri Tyukalov, Russian rower

* 1972 – Yuri Drozdov, Russian footballer

However, Leavitt was using the term to describe what we would now call developmental biology ; it was not until Russian Entomologist Yuri Filipchenko used the terms " macroevolution " and " microevolution " in 1927 in his German language work, " Variabilität und Variation ", that it attained its modern usage.

Russian entomologist Yuri Filipchenko first coined the terms " macroevolution " and " microevolution " in 1927 in his German language work, " Variabilität und Variation ".

* 1922 – Yuri Knorozov, Russian epigrapher ( d. 1999 )

* 2003 – Yuri Senkevich, Russian journalist ( b. 1937 )

In 1959 another Russian scientist, Yuri N. Artsutanov, suggested a more feasible proposal.

* March 31 – Yuri Knorozov, Russian linguist and epigrapher ( b. 1922 )

* October 28 – Yuri Lotman, Russian formalist critic, semiotician, and culturologist ( b. 1922 )

** Yuri Drozdov, Russian footballer

* November 19 – Yuri Knorozov, Russian linguist and epigrapher ( d. 1999 )

** Yuri Gagarin, Russian cosmonaut, first man in space ( d. 1968 )

In 2002, a satyrical short-story The First Russian ( პირველი რუსი ) penned by the young Georgian writer Lasha Bughadze and focused on a frustrated wedding night of Tamar and Yuri outraged many conservatives and triggered a nationwide controversy, including heated discussions in the media, the Parliament of Georgia and the Patriarchate of the Georgian Orthodox Church.

** Yuri IV, Russian grand prince ( b. 1374 )

Yaroslav's christian name was George ( Yuri ) after Saint George ( Old Russian: Гюрьгi, Ghyurghi ).

Notable Russian scientists include Dmitri Mendeleev, Nikolay Bogolyubov, Andrei Kolmogorov, Ivan Pavlov, Nikolai Semyonov, Dmitri Ivanenko, Nikolai Lobachevsky, Alexander Lodygin, Alexander Popov ( one of inventors of radio ), Nikolai Zhukovsky, Alexander Prokhorov and Nikolay Basov ( co-inventors of laser ), Georgiy Gamov, Vladimir Zworykin, Lev Pontryagin, Sergei Sobolev, Pavel Yablochkov, Aleksandr Butlerov, Andrei Sakharov, Dmitry Ivanovsky, Sergey Korolyov and Mstislav Keldysh ( creators of the Soviet space program ), Aleksandr Lyapunov, Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky, Andrei Tupolev, Yuri Denisyuk ( the first practicable method of holography ), Mikhail Lomonosov, Vladimir Vernadsky, Pyotr Kapitsa, Igor Sikorsky, Ludvig Faddeev, Zhores Alferov, Konstantin Novoselov, Fyodor Shcherbatskoy, Nikolai Trubetzkoy etc.

The first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, was Russian, and the first artificial satellite to be put into outer space, Sputnik 1, was launched by the Soviet Union and was developed mainly by Sergey Korolyov who had a Russian father ( his mother was Ukrainian ).