The first living creature in space was a dog and not a monkey.
Laika was launched aboard Sputnik 2 on November 3, 1957 by the Soviet Union.
There was no way to return Laika to earth so she died in space about a week after the launch. 
The name “Laika” means “barker” in Russian.
In space no one can hear you bark.
Laika was also the name of a really crappy soviet toothpaste that was unloaded on Cuba back in the 70’s. It was like brushing your teeth with sandy concrete.
Ivan: (sigh) Misha, how do you have such beautiful white teeth?
Misha: Have you tried this new toothpaste?
Ivan: No! No, I have not.
Misha: It is my secret! The sand brushes away the grime and other pesky things, such as enamel!
Trivia:
We can actually look 2,900,000 years back in time! The Andromeda Galaxy (Messier Object 31; M31) is actiually 2,900,000 light years away, and easily visible with the naked eye. The light we are now seeing was actually emitted two million nine hundred thousand years ago!
I remember reading about Laika, and all the books and articles talking about how great it was that a dog got up into space. My thought, as an impressionable kid was “Did she ever get back down?” Nobody ever talked about that, so I suspected the answer was “no”.
That’s the case. Laika died after a week in orbit:
yeah! that’s the site I was looking at.
How cool is that? She has her own stamps.
Why doesn’t the US have some honoring Gordo or Ham?
The only Gordo we put in space was L. Gordon Cooper Jr., one of the seven original Mercury astronauts, and a human. [sub]I do not have a cite for this.[/sub]
The chimpanzees that NASA sent up were Ham and Enos.
My mistake. My sources only covered the NASA flights.
I hereby award you one act of contrition to be specified at a later date.
Actually, as related in this thread (Lost Cosmonauts), Laika may have died just a few hours after launch.
ok then, but I have my eye on you…
To continue the triviality of this thread…
On average, were you to place the Moon randomly someplace on the sky, it would have odds of only 1 in 30 of covering a star.
Oh, and before anyone asks:Cite. If citing myself is legal… 
Well, since I need to redeem myself a little in this thread, what do Skylab and Fort Pierce, Florida have in common?
(BNB, this piece of trivia is monkey-free.)