Ohio communities to mark 100th birthday of late John Glenn

COLUMBUS, Ohio — John Glenn’s birthplace and childhood hometown in Ohio are joining forces to celebrate what would have been the history-making astronaut and U.S. senator’s 100th birthday with a three-day festival.

Glenn, who died in 2016, was the first American to orbit Earth, making him a national hero in 1962. He spent 24 years as a Democrat in the U.S. Senate.

Running Friday through Sunday, the John Glenn Centennial Celebration is a collaboration between Cambridge, where Glenn was born on July 18, 1921, and nearby New Concord, where he grew up.