
Google has started displaying a special logo celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first manned space flight. On April 12, 1961 Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin flew the Vostok 1 space craft into orbit becoming the first human to reach outer space.
The doodle sports a retro look and is inspired by Soviet posters of the era. It features Gagarin, the first man in space, in full space suit.
It also features a short animation, activated when hovering over the Google logo, showing the Vostok-K rocket, which carried the Vostok spacecraft, launching into space. As usual, the logo still displays the Google name, written in a special font.
The first manned flight into space is one of the big events of the 20th century and marked a pivotal point in the Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States, which started with the first artificial satellite in space, the Sputnik 1 satellite, launched four years prior to the first manned flight.
The Space Race culminated with the first Moon landing, in 1969, just 8 years after the first man reached space. The Americans got to the moon first, of course, while the Russians later focused on the Soyuz program.