Yuri Gagarin
I was teaching the 9th grade students today out of the textbook, and the sample English reading for that day was about Space exploration, and Yuri Gagarin (the first man in Space) and Neil Armstrong (the first man on the moon).
Of course I knew all about Neil Armstrong, "One small step for man..." etc. But I had never heard of Yuri Gagarin before. In fact as I was doing the model reading for the students, I kept tripping over his name because I had no idea how to pronounce it.
Which perhaps indicates a slight bias in the American Educational system. Either that or I'm just an idiot and fell asleep during the Yuri Gagarin section of my history class.
But those of you under 30: honestly, how many of you knew who Yuri Gagarin was?
Update Tom did.