Animals That Helped Change History
Members of the animal kingdom have long played a role in human history. Find out about some of the furry--and feathered--creatures whose list of achievements range from going where no man had gone before to participating in the raid that brought down one of the world’s most infamous terrorists.
Laika, the mutt who became a space pioneer
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On November 3, 1957, Laika (meaning “barker” in Russian) traveled aboard the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2, becoming the first animal to orbit Earth and paving the way for human spaceflight. The canine cosmonaut made her historic mission just one month after the launch of the Soviet Union’s unmanned artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, which signaled the world’s entrance into the space age. A small, female mutt (or “muttnik” as she was dubbed in America), Laika was a stray before being captured and trained along with other potential space dogs; the Soviets preferred to use strays because they tended to be heartier than house-bound hounds. Although Soviet officials initially claimed Laika survived aboard Sputnik 2 for about a week before perishing, in 2002 it was revealed she died a few hours after blastoff due to overheating and stress. After circling Earth more than 2,000 times, Sputnik 2, with Laika’s remains inside, burned up upon re-entering the planet’s atmosphere in April 1958. In August 1960, Soviet space dogs Belka and Strelka became the first animals to circle Earth and survive. Less than a year later, on April 12, 1961, Soviet pilot Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. Eight years after that, on July 20, 1969, the Americans put the first man on the moon with NASA’s Apollo 11 mission.