First Ape In Space

On 31 January 1961, Dittmer dressed Ham in a nappy, [To poop boldly where no chimp has pooped before! — M.B.] waterproof pants and a spacesuit, fitted him with sensors to monitor his heart rate, breathing and body temperature and sealed him into the capsule of the 25-metre-long Mercury-Redstone 2 spacecraft. During Ham's 16-minute ordeal, he experienced some crushing forces on take-off and re-entry and weightlessness for more six minutes. But apart from his evident terror, he seemed otherwise unharmed. He'd beaten Gagarin into space by a clear 10 weeks.

Afterwards, Ham retired to the US National Zoo in Washington DC. There, he enjoyed a celebrity lifestyle, pampered by keepers, receiving mail from adoring fans and answering some of it with his fingerprinted autograph. In 1980 and vastly overweight, Ham moved to North Carolina Zoo, where he died in 1983.