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Valentina Tereshkova first woman in space.
Her historic voyage was the Vostok 5 mission, June 16, 1963, she orbited the Earth 48 times in a flight that flight lasted 2.95 days (=70.8 hours). She'd been an expert in parachuting and a factory worker before she wrote to the Soviet space program, volunteering her service.
Tereshkova married another cosmonaut, Andrian Nikolayev, in November, 1963 . They had a daughter, Elena Andrionovna; Elena was the first child born to parents who both went into space.
Tereshkova went on to graduate from the Zhuykosky Air Force Engineering Academy in 1969, and in 1976, earned a degree in Technical Science.
Editors note: Thanks to Valentina when I was a kid, I could dream of being an astronaut. It took America until 1983 to put a woman in space, how fricking sad is that?