On this day 63 years ago, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth...

February 20, 1962.

The third flight of the Mercury program and the first to attempt reaching earth orbit, Friendship 7 launched successfully from Cape Canaveral, FL with astronaut John H. Glenn, Jr. atop an Atlas rocket. Glenn would orbit the earth three times before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean a national hero. He would subsequently leave the astronaut corps and pursue a career in politics, serving as a Democratic senator from Ohio from 1974-1999. In 1998, he would return to space aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. At the age of 77, he was the oldest human being to ever enter earth orbit.

The last surviving member of the Original Seven astronauts of the U.S. space program, Glenn would eventually pass away on December 8, 2016, at the age of 95.