Space Flight

Last year I was teaching my students about stars and planet and rockets. The Lebanese book wasn't very interesting indeed so I told the kids additional facts, first man in space included. But I realize I've never known the exact date of Gagarin's flight. Thank you, Google - the search engine is celebrating 12 April with a special logo
There are a lot of speculations about the flight, Gagarin's death etc., but I have keen memories from my childhood - we knew songs and poems about him and I suppose this day was celebrated as a holiday. I was always passionate about the outer space, maybe that's why I'm a big SciFi fan.
I will not put links to sites with information about this day - there are plenty and Google helps a lot ;) I just feel spacey today.