On March 6, 1937, the 1st woman in space, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, was born in a small village on the Volga River. 

“A bird cannot fly with one wing only. Human spaceflight cannot develop any further without the active participation of women.”
Valentina Tereshkova

Visit of Cosmonauts Tereshkova and Nikolaev
Stamp issued to commemorate cosmonauts’ visit to Hungary.
Issued by Magyar Posta May 10, 1965
Illustrator: Kékesi László
Engraver: Ferenc Gál‎

Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova c. 1963

In 1963, 26-year-old Tereshkova became the first woman sent to space. She rocketed into orbit aboard the Vostok 6 space capsule. She orbited earth 48 times. She was also the first civilian in space and is still the youngest woman in space.

• The flight lasted 2 days 22 hours 50 minutes, range and travelled 1 million 971 thousand km.
• Her call name was Chayka (Seagull)
• While circling the earth, Tereshkova took numerous photos of the horizon. Those photos were later used to detect aerosol layers in the atmosphere. (rf: June 16, 2018 marks the 55th anniversary of the flight of the World first women-cosmonaut. | Russian Space News)
• She also kept a log of the effects the flight had on her body while in a weightless atmosphere. 
• Tereshkova launched June 16, 1963, at 12:29:52 Moscow time. 
• She has said recently that she would like to be the first woman to travel to Mars. 

Vostok 6 descent module Copyright © 2000 Anatoly Zak
Image courtesy The Russian Space Web

In May 1962, a Soviet space delegation visited the United States and left with the mistaken impression that America was selecting female astronauts and that one of them would be flying very soon. Not to be upstaged, the Soviets put a plan in place to fly not one but two women on separate Vostok capsules as early as late 1962, with Ponomaryova and Tereshkova as the leading candidates. As it happened, delays ensued and the plan was changed to fly only one woman with a male cosmonaut in the other capsule. Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev himself made the final selection, choosing Tereshkova, with Solovyova as first backup and Ponomaryova as second backup. On June 14, 1963, Vostok 5 launched with Valeriy Bykovskiy on board. Two days later, Tereshkova launched aboard Vostok 6 and made history by becoming the first woman in space, using the call sign Chaika (чайка), or Seagull. During Tereshkova’s first orbit, the two spacecraft came within 3 miles of each other and the two cosmonauts talked to each other by radio, before drifting apart and completing their separate missions. She circled the Earth 48 times over three days and made a successful parachute landing on June 19. Tereshkova was feted as a hero in the Soviet Union and made many goodwill tours around the world to celebrate her accomplishment as yet another Soviet space “first.” 
Valentina Tereshkova and Sally Ride – Women Space Pioneers – NASA

Tereshkova never returned to space and the female space program was disbanded October 1969.