John Glenn John Glenn Colonel John Herschel Glenn Jr. (July 18, 1921 – December 8, 2016) was a United States Marine Corps aviator, engineer, astronaut, businessman, and politician. He was the first American to orbit the Earth, circling it three times in 1962. Following his retirement from NASA, he served from 1974 to 1999 as a Democratic United States Senator from Ohio. Before joining NASA, Glenn was a distinguished fighter pilot in World War II, China and Korea. He shot down three MiG-15s, and was awarded six Distinguished Flying Crosses and eighteen Air Medals. In 1957, he made the first supersonic transcontinental
Glenn M. Wise her in the 1956 Republican primary. Wise remained an active and steadfast Republican. She had married John E. Wise Sr. in 1924; he later became chief electrical engineer for the State of Wisconsin, and died in 1968. Glenn Wise was active in the Presbyterian church and civic activities; when she died at the age of 95, she left behind one son (John Jr.), five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Glenn M. Wise Glenn Miller Wise (born July 14, 1896, Wyocena, Wisconsin – died September 24, 1991, Madison, Wisconsin) was a secretary, statistician, and Republican politician, who served as Wisconsin's first female