KATHERINE JOHNSON

August 26, 1918 - February 24, 2020

1932 - Graduated from highschool at age 13
1937 - Graduated from West Virginia State with a double degree in french and math
1939 - Became 1 of 3 to be the first black students at West Virginia University
1953 - Started working for NACA's West Area Computing unit, where she manually solved complex math calculations for engineers
1961 - Calculated the path for Freedom 7, which put the first US astronaut into space
1962 - Manually rechecked the math for the Friendship 7 mission at the request of John Glenn
1969 - Helped with many of the calculations for the Apollo 11 mission
2015 - Was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom
2016 - NASA named a research facility after her, the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility



NASA Katherine Johnson Biography
Brittanica Katherine Johnson Biography
WVSU Katherine Johnson Biography



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