March 18

Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov was a Soviet and Russian cosmonaut, major general in the Russian Air Force, writer, and artist. On March 18, 1965, he became the first person to do a spacewalk, outside the Voskhod 2 spacecraft for 12 minutes and 9 seconds during the Voskhod 2 mission. On board were two cosmonauts, Alexei Leonov and Pavel Belyayev, who were tasked with performing humanity's first spacewalk. The USSR was in the midst of a golden period of space exploration, and the cosmonauts' mission, apart from the obvious scientific and personal stakes, the possible geopolitical ramifications were enormous.
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