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John Herschel Glenn Jr. was born in Cambridge, Ohio on July 18, 1921. In 1939, he enrolled at Muskingum College to study chemistry, but took flying lessons on the side. Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, he signed up for the Naval Aviation cadet program and after pilot training opted to join the Marines. As a fighter pilot, he flew 59 combat missions in the Pacific earning two Distinguished Flying Crosses. During the Korean War, he flew 90 combat missions. He later became a military test pilot in the early days of supersonic flight. In 1957, he made the first transcontinental supersonic flight, piloting an F8U-1 Crusader from Los Angeles to New York in record time: 3 hours 23 minutes 8.4 seconds.

He was selected as an original Mercury 7 astronaut. On February 20, 1962, he became the first American to orbit Earth. President John F. Kennedy thought him too valuable as a hero to risk losing in an accident and suggested that NASA not give him a new flight assignment. Glenn resigned from the astronaut corps in 1964. He became an executive of the Royal Crown Cola Company. In 1974, he became a Democratic senator from Ohio and went on to serve four full terms. As a member of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, he developed the medical rationale used in arguing his case for a return flight in space. On October 29, 1998, he became the oldest person to go into space at the age of 77.

His memoir, John Glenn: A Memoir was written with Nick Taylor and published in 1999. During his lifetime, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. He died on December 8, 2016 at the age of 95.

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