April 12

Major Gagarin spent two years training for his space trip

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Russia has beaten the USA in the race to get the first man into space.

At just after 0700BST, Major Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin was fired from the Baikonur launch pad in Kazakhstan, Soviet central Asia, in the space craft Vostok (East).

Major Gagarin orbited the Earth for 108 minutes travelling at more than 17,000 miles per hour (27,000 kilometres per hour) before landing at an undisclosed location.

The Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev has congratulated Major Gagarin on his achievement.

He sent the cosmonaut a message from his holiday home on the Black Sea.

"The flight made by you opens up a new page in the history of mankind in its conquest of space," Mr Khrushchev said.

The Russian news agency, Tass, made the first official announcement of Major Gagarin's flight at just before 0800BST.

National hero

Radio Moscow then interrupted its schedule to give details to a jubilant nation.

Major Gagarin's safe return has laid to rest worries that space flight would be fatal for humans.

It is also a blow to the Americans who had hoped to be the first to launch a man beyond Earth's atmosphere.

However, President Kennedy has congratulated the Russians on their achievement.

It would be some time before the United States caught up with the Russians in the fields of rocket boosters, the president added.

Rumours that a Russian launch attempt was imminent began some days ago.

It was the culmination of two years of highly secretive training for Yuri Gagarin, 27, who beat off thousands of other hopefuls.

The previously obscure army major has returned to earth a national hero.

He has already been awarded the title of "Master of Radio Sport of the Soviet Union" and a big reception for him at the Kremlin in Red Square is being planned.

The evacuees were airlifted to a US warship

Early this morning 276 people were airlifted from a football field near the embassy by a fleet of 30 helicopters.

Those on the airlift included 159 Cambodians who had worked with the Americans.

Foreign journalists who had been covering the civil war between the communist Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian government were also airlifted out of the country.

It was feared "Operation Eagle Pull", as theevacuationwas dubbed, would come under Khmer Rouge fire and more than 300 armed Marines guarded the field.

However, the operation passed off uneventfully.

Some of Cambodia's most senior government ministers, including the Acting President, Saukham Khoy, were among the evacuees.

The country's Prime Minister, Long Boret, has remained in Phnom Penh.

Long Boret's decision not to leave came as a surprise as he has been condemned to death by the advancing Khmer Rouge.

'Heavy heart'

The evacuees were flown to American war ships, the Okinawa and the Hancock, in the Gulf of Thailand.

In Washington, President Ford explained the reasons why the US had pulled out of Cambodia.

Mr Ford said he had taken the decision with "a heavy heart" but had done so to ensure the safety of Americans who had "served valiantly".

The American withdrawal is aningloriousend to five years of involvement in Cambodia's civil war.

Its presence in the country was closely linked to the war it is conducting in neighbouring Vietnam.

Between 1970 and 1973 the US bombed Cambodia in order to stop its North Vietnamese enemies using the country as a base.

If Phnom Penh does fall, Cambodia will become the first country since Cuba 16 years ago to pass into Communist hands.

evacuation:the act of evacuating or the condition of being evacuated(撤退)

inglorious:ignominious; disgraceful（不光彩的，不体面的）