Vitus Jonassen Bering, also known as Ivan Ivanovich Bering, was born in August 1681, in Horsens, Denmark. He was a Danish map-maker and explorer in Russian service, and an officer in the Russian Navy. Bering is known for exploration of the Bering Strait and Alaska.
Vitus Bering was the captain of the First Kamchatka Expedition and the Great Northern Expedition. In July 1728 Bering set sail from the Siberian peninsula of Kamchatka and in August passed through the Bering Strait into the Arctic Ocean. In spite of the bad weather he concluded that Siberia and America were not joined.
During the reign of Empress Anna, in 1741, Bering's expidition mapped much of the Arctic coast of Siberia. Bering sailed into the Gulf of Alaska and explored the southwestern coast, the Alaska Peninsula, and the Aleutian Islands. He died in December, 1741, on Bering Island, near the Kamchatka Peninsula.
The Bering Strait, the Bering Sea, Bering Island, the Bering Glacier and the Bering Land Bridge were all named in his honor.
Витус Йонассен Беринг, также известный как Иван Иванович Беринг, родился в августе 1681 года в городе Хорсенс, в Дании. Он был датским картографом и исследователем на службе в России и офицером военно-морского флота России. Беринг известен как исследователь Берингова пролива и Аляски.
Витус Беринг был капитаном Первой Камчатской Экспедиции и Великой Северной Экспедиции. В июле 1728 года Беринг отплыл от Сибирского полуострова на Камчатку и в августе через Берингов пролив в Северный Ледовитый океан. Несмотря на плохую погоду, он пришел к выводу, что Сибирь и Америка не соединяются.
Во время правления императрицы Анны, в 1741 году, экспедиция Беринга нанесла на карту большую часть арктического побережья Сибири. Беринг отправился в залив Аляска и разведал юго-западное побережье, полуостров Аляска и Алеутские острова. Он умер в декабре 1741 года на острове Беринга, недалеко от Камчатского полуострова.
В его честь были названы Берингов пролив, Берингово море, остров Беринга, ледник Беринга и заповедник Беринг-Лэнд-Бридж.
Mankind always dreamed of overcoming gravitation and reaching other planets. But it was only in the 1960ies that this dream was to become reality.
On the 12th of April 1961 the spaceship «Vostok» was launched into space with a man on board and after orbiting our planet successfully returned to the Earth.
The first man to overcome gravitation and orbit the Earth was Yuri Gagarin. This day went down in history of mankind as an outstanding achievement, opening the space era.
In the course of space exploration there have been lots of achievements of world science and technology. This period saw the launching of many earth satellites, numerous space laboratories. Among the achievements we may enumerate the landing of automatic stations on the Moon, the flights of space laboratories towards Venus and Mars.
These are the years of manned space flight programmes: Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman-cosmonaut to make a space flight, A. A. Leonov achieved the first «space walk» in 1965, the first Soviet experimental station with four cosmonauts on tjoard went into orbit, the first American expedition landed on the Moon.
