Man's Best Friend: The First Living Thing to Orbit the Earth (and come back alive)

Did you know two dogs named Belka and Strelka were the first living organisms to orbit the Earth?

Their real names were Albina and Markiza but they were renamed because the country's leadership didn't like foreign names. In August 1960, they orbited the Earth 15 times and their voyage was a little over 24 hours. When they returned from space they were studied to see what impact space had on their bodies. After, they died natural deaths and were old in age. Today, Belka and Strelka are located at the Cosmonautics Memorial Museum in Moscow.