Russia Sends First Man Into Space

Postcard and stamps showing Yuri Gagarin

Russian cosmonaut Major Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin becomes the first man to fly into space.

(12 April 1961)
In 1961, Russia beat the U.S.A. in the race to get the first man into space, winning the so-called "space race". The spacecraft Vostok (East) was launched from the Baikonur launch pad in Kazakhstan in what was then part of Soviet central Asia. Major Gagarin orbited the Earth for 108 minutes travelling at more than 17,000 miles per hour (27,000 kilometres per hour) before returning safely to Earth.
Wordchecker
cosmonaut (noun): a Russian space explorer
so-called (adjective): also known as
launch (verb): send into space
launch pad (noun): the place from which a spacecraft is sent into space
orbit (verb): circle around an object in space

Seven Roman Numerals

You know that 2 + 2 = 4. But do you know that ii + ii = iv?

The numbers that we normally use (1, 2, 3 etc) are called "Arabic numerals". But we sometimes use another system for writing numers - "Roman numerals". The Romans used letters of the alphabet to represent numbers, and even today you will occasionally see this system used for page numbers, clock faces, dates of movies etc.
There are 7 letters used for Roman numerals:
I = 1
V = 5
X = 10
L = 50
C = 100
D = 500
M = 1000
In general, letters are placed in decreasing order of value, eg XVI = 16.
Letters can be repeated one or two times to increase value, eg XX = 20, XXX = 30.
Letters cannot be repeated three times, so XXXX is not used for 40. In this case, XL = 40 (50 minus 10).
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