Gzhatsky District of the Western Region of the RSFSR (now Gagarinsky District of the Smolensk Region), near the city of Gzhatsk (now Gagarin). By origin, it comes from the peasants: his father, Alexey Ivanovich Gagarin (1902-1973), - the carpenter, mother, Anna Timofeevna Matveeva (1903-1984), - the pigman.

Yuri's childhood passed in the village Klushino. On September 1, 1941, the boy went to school, but on October 12, the Germans occupied the village and his studies were interrupted. For nearly a year and a half, the village of Klushino was occupied by German troops. On April 9, 1943, the village was liberated by the Red Army, and schooling resumed.

On May 24, 1945, the Gagarins family moved to Gzhatsk. In May 1949, Gagarin graduated from the sixth grade of Gzhatsk Secondary School, and on September 30 entered Lyubertsy Vocational School No. 10. At the same time entered the evening school of working youth, the seventh grade of which he graduated in May 1951, and in June graduated with honors from the school in the specialty molder -caster.

On October 27, 1955, Gagarin was drafted into the army and sent to Orenburg, to the 1st Military Aviation Pilot School named after KE Voroshilov. He studied at the test test pilot Ya. Sh. Akbulatov, who was famous at that time.
October 25, 1957 Gagarin College graduated with honors.
For two years he served in the 169th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the 122nd Fighter Aviation Division of the Northern Fleet, armed with MiG-15bis aircraft.
By October 1959, a total of 265 hours had flown. In 1959 he married to Valentina Ivanovna Goryacheva. On December 9, 1959, Gagarin wrote a statement asking him to enroll him in the group of candidates for cosmonauts. A week later, he was summoned to Moscow to undergo a comprehensive medical examination at the Central Research Aviation Hospital. At the beginning of the next year, another special medical board followed, which recognized Senior Lieutenant Gagarin as fit for space flight.
On March 3, 1960, by order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force Konstantin Andreyevich Vershinin, he was enlisted in the group of candidates for cosmonauts, and on March 11, Gagarin with his family left for a new job. From March 25, regular astronaut training program began. On April 12, 1961, the Vostok spacecraft was launched for the first time in the world from the Baikonur cosmodrome, onboard with cosmonaut Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin.

For this feat he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, and since April 12, 1962, the day of Gagarin’s flight into space was declared a holiday - Cosmonautics Day.

In 1966, Gagarin was elected Honorary Member of the International Academy of Astronautics, and in 1964 he was appointed commander of the Soviet cosmonaut detachment. In June 1966, Gagarin had already begun training under the Soyuz program. He was appointed understudy Komarov, who made the first flight on a new ship.

Gagarin defends his graduation project in the Air Force Engineering Academy. Zhukovsky.

February 17, 1968, Yuri Alekseevich defended at the VVIA them. Professor Zhukovsky graduation project. The State Examination Commission conferred on Colonel Yu. A. Gagarin the qualification of a pilot-cosmonaut engineer. Until the last days, Gagarin served as deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

On March 27, 1968, he died under unexplained circumstances near the village of Novoselovo in the Kirzhachsky district of the Vladimir region during one of the training flights. He was buried near the Kremlin wall in Red Square.