Muammar Gaddafi
Muammar Gaddafi (1942), Libyan soldier and politician. The son of nomads, Gaddafi joined the Libyan army in 1962 and formed a radical Arab nationalist organization among his fellow officers. Following his failure to receive a promotion, he led a successful coup in 1969 and declared the Libyan Arab Republic As chairman of the Revolutionary Council; he promoted himself to colonel and took charge of the country’s political and military affairs. He took the title of president m 1977. Widely regarded as .a dangerous maverick, Gaddafi has backed terrorist campaigns in Israel and various Western countries in pursuit of his dream of Arab unity. In 1986 US planes bombed Tripoli in retaliation, killing Gaddafi’s adopted daughter. He caused controversy again in 1995, when he began to expel thousands of Palestinian refugees from Libya. Gagarin, Yuri (1934-68). Russian cosmonaut, the first man to travel in space. He came from a peasant family and went to flying school in 1955. Within a year he was piloting jets and in 1960 he started training as a cosmonaut. His historic spaceflight in Vostok I took place on 12 April 1961 and consisted of a single orbit of the earth. This proved that man could survive the mental and physical stresses of space travel He died in an air crash and the town of his birth was renamed Gagarin in his memory.
