Born July 18, 1921,
New Concord, Ohio
John Glenn’s spaceflight around Earth made him a hero. At the time of Glenn’s flight, space was a new battleground in the cold war between the Soviet Union and the United States. The Soviet Union’s advantage at the beginning of the space race, as it was called, put pressure on the United States to launch a man into Earth orbit. Mechanical difficulties during Glenn’s flight made his accomplishment even more heroic.
Named after his father, who was a fireman for the B&O Railroad, John H. Glenn, Jr., was born on July 18, 1921, in New Concord, a small town in southeastern Ohio. Glenn’s modest background and formative experiences parallel those of another Ohioan, Neil Armstrong (see entry), thus giving this midwestern state a unique position in the annals of spaceflight. Like Armstrong, Glenn interrupted his college education to serve his country. In 1939 Glenn enrolled at Muskingum College, located in New Concord. When the United States entered World War II after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Glenn left college and volunteered for service in the U.S. Marine Corps. He attended flight training at the University of Iowa and at the Naval Air Training Center in Corpus Christi, Texas.
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