John H. Glenn, Jr., the oldest of seven astronauts selected by NASA for Project Mercury spaceflight training (and later a U.S. senator), became on this day in 1962 the first American to orbit Earth, doing so three times.
| 1986: | | The Soviet Union launched the core module of the space station Mir. |
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| 1976: | | The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization held its final exercise in Manila (and formally ended on June 30, 1977). |
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| 1943: | | The volcano Parícutin in Michoacán, Mexico, erupted, eventually burying two villages. |
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| 1929: | | The U.S. Congress formally accepted the deeds of cession of eastern Samoa, forming American Samoa. |
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| 1909: | | Italian author Filippo Tommaso Marinetti coined the term Futurism in the Parisian newspaper Le Figaro. |
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