John Glenn dies at age 95

John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, dies at 95  John Glenn, an astronaut, senator and old-fashioned American hero, died Thursday at the age of 95, the Columbus Dispatch reported.

Glenn was the last survivor of the Mercury 7, selected in 1959 as NASA’s first group of astronauts. He became the first American to orbit the Earth on Feb. 20, 1962. It was a solo flight, not everything went as planned in space, and Glenn personified cool under pressure.

Those nerves had earlier served him well as a much-decorated veteran of two wars and a military test pilot ― and perhaps they came in handy later in his 24 years in the U.S. Senate representing his native state of Ohio...

NYT: John Glenn, American Hero of the Space Age, Dies at 95

John Glenn, a freckle-faced son of Ohio who was hailed as a national hero and a symbol of the space age as the first American to orbit Earth, then became a national political figure for 24 years in the Senate, died on Thursday in Columbus, Ohio. He was 95.

 

His death was announced on Twitter by Gov. John Kasich of Ohio.

 

Mr. Glenn had recently been hospitalized at the James Cancer Center at Ohio State University in Columbus, though university officials said at the time that admission there did not necessarily mean he had cancer. He had heart-valve replacement surgery in 2014 and a stroke around that time...