CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, WASHINGTON, D.C.- Former astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth and a former Democratic U.S. senator from Ohio, died on Thursday in Columbus, Ohio, a city some 120 miles south of Cleveland.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

President Barack Obama, America's first Black president and a Democrat like Glen, offered condolences from the White House to the Glenn family.

"With John's passing, our nation has lost an icon, and Michelle and I have lost a friend, " said Obama in a press release on Thursday to Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's Black digital news leader.  "John spent his life breaking barriers, from defending our freedom as a decorated Marine Corps fighter pilot in World War II and Korea, to setting a transcontinental speed record, to becoming, at age 77, the oldest human to touch the stars."

The president, who bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Glenn at a White House ceremony in 2012, said that Glen "always had the right stuff, inspiring generations of scientists, engineers and astronauts."

Born July 18, 1921 in Cambridge, Ohio and raised in Concord, Ohio, Glenn was a distinguished Marine Corps pilot in Korea and World War ll before joining NASA and orbiting earth three times in 1962, the first to do so from American soil.

He resigned from NASA in 1964 and won a U.S. senate seat in 1974, where he served until 1999. He was succeeded in Congress by the late and former U.S. senator George Voinovich, a Republican and former mayor of the city of Cleveland.

Glenn was also the oldest astronaut, returning to space in 1998 at 77-year-old as a Payload Specialist on Discovery's STS-95 mission.

Before his death, he was the oldest living former U.S. senator.

Glenn is survived by his wife Annie, and their children Carolyn and John.