If only “most Americans” were educated enough to know who John Glenn was.
One person I know in the US, was adamant that John Glenn was the first man in space. When I pointed out it was in fact, Yuri Gargarin, their response was "Whatever."
Yuri Gagarin didn’t get a congratulatory parade in the US; it might have been “awkward.”
“...it is difficult, today, for us to understand the level of Gagarin’s instant celebrity. When he visited Britain, he was driven through cheering crowds in an open-topped Rolls Royce, with the numberplate YG-1, to take tea with the Queen at Buckingham Palace (Elena recalls that she “gave him some rather beautiful dolls to bring back for me and Galina). The Russophobe Daily Mail even ran the headline: “Make him Sir Yuri!”, while John F Kennedy was so alarmed by his popularity that he banned him from entering the United States.”
Yuri Gagarin didn’t get a congratulatory parade in the US; it might have been “awkward.”
“...it is difficult, today, for us to understand the level of Gagarin’s instant celebrity. When he visited Britain, he was driven through cheering crowds in an open-topped Rolls Royce, with the numberplate YG-1, to take tea with the Queen at Buckingham Palace (Elena recalls that she “gave him some rather beautiful dolls to bring back for me and Galina). The Russophobe Daily Mail even ran the headline: “Make him Sir Yuri!”, while John F Kennedy was so alarmed by his popularity that he banned him from entering the United States.”
