Yuri's Night is a celebration held each year on April 12. The idea is to commemorate the date when Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth on April 12, 1961, and the launch of the first Space Shuttle, Columbia, on April 12, 1981. However Yuri's Night goes far beyond that by raising awareness of all human space exploration.

The event was conceived by Loretta Hidalgo and George Whitesides. Yuri's Night celebrations have occurred on every continent and even aboard the International Space Station. The first event was appropriately held in 2001.

The photographs on this page are from the Yuri's Night Los Angeles event on April 12, 2005, held at GMT Studios in Culver City.

Shaking it up at the bar

Crystal Ramsey, from Yuri's Night, with the Orange County Space Society display.

VIP speakers Dijanna Figueroa (PhD graduate student in Marine Science at UC Santa Barbara and star of the IMAX film "Aliens of the Deep") and Dr. Pan Conrad (Senior Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

Yuri's Night guests discuss the future of space exploration

OCSS Secretary Jeff Howe with Allison Dollar

Emily Eelkema (JPL Mars rover scientist), Joe Landon (Yuri's Night-LA Executive Producer), and Karen Lau (YN Art & Design Director)

Crystal Ramsey and film director David Sanders

Emily Eelkema

The main bar area

Bob Weiss (right and above) is President of Broadway Pictures and also the Vice Chairman of the X Prize Foundation

Eugene Roddenberry (Gene Roddenberry's son)

Vanna Bonta (3rd from left) is a musical artist whose newest music video ("What Goes Up") premiered at the YN event

Example of some of the phantasmagorical decor at the YN-LA party

Representatives of the Zip Fizz Co, a Yuri's Night sponsor

Dancing all night

Jeff Howe, Ivor Dawson, and Cherie Rabideau

Outrageous costumes are the norm at a Yuri's Night event

Crystal Ramsey with two television sets who dropped by

Checking our location from space

A dancer with a set of lights on whips (with flash and without)

The Russian contingent arrives

Crystal Ramsey (center) and other Yuri's Night - Los Angeles 2005 partygoers