Sputnik: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/09/24/science/space/20070924_SPUTNIK_GRAPHIC.html#tab1
My friend’s mother wrote a paper when she was in high school regarding the Cold War and why America would beat the USSR to space.
Two days before it was due, Sputnik went up. Whoops!
other Russian Space Achievements:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nedelin_catastrophe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plesetsk_Cosmodrome