10 Things to Know About John Glenn, Who Has Died at 95

by admin on December 9, 2016

ABC New

TEST PILOT

As a military test pilot in 1957, Glenn broke the transcontinental air speed record, bursting from Los Angeles to New York City in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds. His Crusader jet averaged 725 miles per hour.

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FIRST AMERICAN TO ORBIT EARTH:

Glenn went into orbit on Friendship 7 on Feb. 20, 1962, but the Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin was the first man to orbit Earth and Alan Shephard was the first American in space, on a sub-orbital mission.

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IN THE CANYON OF HEROES

A total of 3,474 tons of paper were swept up after Glenn’s ticker tape parade in New York in March of 1962 — more than any parade since the one marking the end of World War II.

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TOO IMPORTANT TO FLY?

It has been said that President John F. Kennedy felt he could not risk sending Glenn into space a second time. Said Glenn in a 1995 interview: “Kennedy had indicated to NASA that he would just as soon that I was not assigned to another flight. Now, whether it was because of the impact if I got killed on the second flight would that reflect politically, I never knew.”

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LONGTIME SENATOR

A Democrat, Glenn was Ohio’s longest serving senator, serving just a bit more than 24 years until 1999. But that was only after two earlier attempts. In 1964, he had to stop his campaign after he hit his head in a bathtub accident, and he lost the Democratic primary in 1970.

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HAT IN THE ULTIMATE RING

Glenn ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 1984 but lost in the primaries to former Vice President Walter Mondale.

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OLDEST MAN IN SPACE

Glenn returned to space aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1998 at age 77. He was the subject of experiments on geriatrics and microgravity.

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LAST OF HIS KIND:

Glenn was the last surviving member of the original Mercury 7 astronauts. Five hundred forty-six people flew in orbit after Glenn, only two before: Gagarin and Gherman Titov.

 

 

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