In 1965, Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov becomes the first person to walk in space after abandoning his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes.

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.
Related On This Day

Pocahontas, an American Indian princess and the daughter of Powhatan, dies at the age of 22 in 1617.

Ratna Pathak, an actress and director recognised for her work in theatre, television, and Bollywood cinema, was born in 1957.

In 2009, Bruce Willis, star of the Die Hard franchise, married model and actress Emma Heming in Turks & Caicos Islands.

M. N. Roy, an Indian revolutionary, radical activist, and political thinker, was born in 1887.

Khushwant Singh, an Indian novelist, lawyer, diplomat, writer, and politician, died in 2014.

1894 Surya Sen, often known as Master Da, is an Indian independence campaigner who was born in Chittagong, India.

Alisha Chinai, an Indian pop singer best known for her Indi-pop albums and playback singing in Hindi films, was born in 1965.

PETA was formed in 1980 by Ingrid Newkirk and Alex Pacheco, who were inspired by the book Animal Liberation by Australian ethicist Peter Singer.

The Yamuna and Ganges rivers in India were designated "living creatures" by a court in the state of Uttarakhand in 2017.

Ronaldinho Gaucho, a Brazilian soccer player, was born in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil in 1980.

Colonel Harland Sanders establishes the American fast food restaurant brand "KFC" in North Corbin, Kentucky in 1930.

In 2020, India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, declared the country's largest-ever self-imposed curfew, dubbed the 'Janata Curfew.' This was done in order to combat the spread of the coronavirus.