Timur PANKOV
ALMATY March 11
(THE GLOBE)
Yury Gagarin was born March 9, 1934, near Gzhatsk, Russian S.F.S.R. He died March 27, 1968, near Moscow. Gagaring is the Soviet cosmonaut who in 1961 became the first man to travel into space.
The son of a carpenter on a collective farm, Gagarin graduated as a molder from a trade school near Moscow in 1951. He continued his studies at the industrial college at Saratov and concurrently took a course in flying. On completing this course he entered the Soviet Air Force cadet school at Orenburg, from which he graduated in 1957.
Gagarin�s 4 3/4-ton Vostok 1 spacecraft was launched at 9:07 AM Moscow time on April 12, 1961, orbited the Earth once in 1 hour 29 minutes at a maximum altitude of 187 miles (301 kilometres), and landed at 10:55 AM in the Soviet Union. His spaceflight brought him immediate worldwide fame; he was awarded the Order of Lenin and given the titles of Hero of the Soviet Union and Pilot Cosmonaut of the Soviet Union. Monuments were raised to him and streets renamed in his honour across the Soviet Union.
He never went into space again but took an active part in training other cosmonauts. He made several tours to other nations following his historic flight, and from 1962 he served as a deputy to the Supreme Soviet. Gagarin was killed with another pilot in the crash of a two-seat jet aircraft while on what was described as a routine training flight. His ashes were placed in a niche in the Kremlin wall. After his death in 1968 the town of Gzhatsk was renamed Gagarin.
Mystery of death of Yury Gagarin
An Italian magazine recently published a new story about Gagarin�s death.
Here there is a brief summary:
A KGB officer, who had been accompanied him since his historic flight, reveals new facts that could be part of a plan to kill Yury Gagarin.
On March 27, 1967, Yury Gagarin took off with his Mig 15 for what had to be his last flight. Onboard the jet there also was his instructor Vladimir Seryoghin. That day, at 10,31 in the morning, his jet plane crashed, near the town of Kirzhach, killing the two men.
After his historic flight inside the Vostok 1 spacecraft, Gagarin became a symbol, the symbol of the communism superiority in space technology.
After 30 years a new story emerges from KGB officer Venyamin Ivanovich Rusyaev. He was the closest person to Gagarin, besides his wife Valyushka Gagarina, in the years after the Vostok 1 mission. He was his bodyguard, his confident, his shadow. He told his story to a �Literaturnaya Gazeta��s journalist. He cannot understand some facts but he never talked about a murder, just about some strange facts that happened since Yury was named Komarov�s backup for the Soyuz 1 flight.
The KGB officer says Vladimir Komarov invited he and his wife to have a supper just a month before the Soyuz 1 flight. That evening Komarov told Rusyaev he knew he would not be back alive form the mission, Komarov knew, he was sure of that and when Rusyaev told him to resign the mission Komarov replied he could not resign because of that would meant to have Gagarin on that mortal flight, Gagarin had to be protected.
Few days later the KGB officer received an envelope containing a document signed by Gagarin and other cosmonaut. That document was to be read by Breznev - although noone know if it actually reached the Communist Party secretary - and it was intended to avoid the Soyuz 1 flight because the Soyuz spacecraft was not yet ready to be launched manned. Komarov underwent a very hard training for the mission, so hard he had to take days to rest, maybe it was intended to make Vladimir resign and make Gagarin fly in place of him. Anyway, Soyuz 1 took off on April 23, 1967, piloted by Validim Komarov and 24 hours later Komarov died on re-entry because of the parachute failed to deploy properly.
After the accident, Gagarin contacted Rusyaev and told him he was sad because of the hard work he did to avoid the flight. Yury decided to talk with Breznev in person, but noone know if they met to discuss the question.
So what happened on March 27, 1968? At 10,18 in the morning Gagarin took off piloting a Mig 25 jet plane accompanied by his instructor and 13 minutes later the jet crashed, the crew did not try to eject and no radio communication were detected before the crash.
Yury Gagarin, Russian cosmonaut, the first man to travel into space
Michael SERGEYEV
ALMATY, March 11 (THE GLOBE)
Joe DiMaggio, the elegant Yankee Clipper whose 56-game hitting streak endures as one of the most remarkable records in baseball or any sport, died Monday at his home in Florida. He was 84.
Voted the greatest living baseball player at baseball�s centennial, DiMaggio was a national hero in his time.
DiMaggio, who underwent lung cancer surgery in October and battled a series of complications for weeks afterward, died shortly after midnight, said Morris Engelberg, his longtime friend and attorney.
At DiMaggio�s bedside were his brother, Dominick, a former major-league outfielder; two grandchildren; Engelberg; and Joe Nacchio, his friend of 59 years.
A funeral was held on Thursday in his native Northern California, with burial to follow in the San Francisco area.
Joe DiMaggio demonstrates his perfect swing, 1941
The Americans and the Japanese decided to engage in a competitive boat race. Both teams practiced hard and long to reach their peak performance.
On the big day they felt ready. The Japanese won by a mile. Afterward, the American team was discouraged by the loss. Morale sagged. Corporate management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found, so a consulting firm was hired to investigate the problem and recommended corrective action.
The consultant�s finding: The Japanese team had eight people rowing and one person steering; the American team had one person rowing and eight people steering.
After a year of study and millions spent analyzing the problem, the consultant firm concluded that too many people were steering and not enough were rowing on the American team.
So as race day neared again the following year, the American team�s management structure was completely reorganized. The new structure: four steering managers, three area steering managers and a new performance review system for the person rowing the boat to provide work incentive.
The next year, the Japanese won by two miles. Humiliated, the American corporation laid off the rower for poor performance and gave the managers a bonus for discovering the problem....
12/03/1923 - Dr. Lee DeForest demonstrated how he put sound on motion picture film this day. One of the pioneers of �modern� radio in the early 1900�s, DeForest came up with a snappy name for his invention; he called it: phonofilm. Today, we call it a soundtrack. My, how things change.
12/03/1969 - Wedding bells rang this day in London for singer, Paul McCartney and his new bride, photographer, Linda Eastman. Also on this day, Beatle George Harrison and his wife were arrested at their home on drug charges. If they had only been at the wedding...
12/03/1946 - Was born Liza Minnelli (Academy Award-winning actress: Cabaret; The Sterile Cuckoo, Arthur, Liza with a �Z�!; daughter of Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli)
13/03/1930 - It was announced on this day that the planet Pluto had been discovered. No, not by Mickey Mouse, but by astronomers who had been looking for another planet in the solar system.
13/03/1947 - Foreign-made films showed up in the Oscar nominations this day, bringing an end to Hollywood�s then exclusive rights to the coveted awards. Of the foreign movies nominated, three were British, one was French and one Italian.
14/03/1879 - Was born Albert Einstein (Nobel Prize-winning physicist [1921]: developed the Theory of Relativity)
15/03/1964 - Wedding bells this day (the first time) for actor Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. The couple wed in secret ceremonies in Montreal, Canada. Well, if it was SO secret, how come we know about it? No, we didn�t make it up, either. The couple would be wed again a number of years after their divorce from this marriage.
All Over the Globe is published by IPA House.
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