Jimmy Carter was born on October 1, 1924, at Wise Sanitarium in Plains, Georgia. He was the first US president to be born in a hospital.
Carter grew up on his family's farm near Plains. From childhood, he wanted to attend the United States Naval Academy, obtain a college education and serve in the US Navy.
Jimmy Carter married Eleanor Rosalynn Smith on July 7, 1946, in Plains. He was 21 and she was 18.
The couple had four children: John William “Jack” (born 1947), James Earl “Chip” III (born 1950), Donnel Jeffrey “Jeff” (born 1952) and Amy Lynn (born 1967).
Amy Carter became a political activist. She was arrested during demonstrations against apartheid and in a 1986 protest against CIA recruitment at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Carter graduated with distinction from the United States Naval Academy in 1946 and served as a naval officer. After surface duty, he became a submariner and was selected for Captain Hyman Rickover's nuclear-submarine program.
In 1952, Carter led a 23-man US Navy team that helped clean up the damaged NRX reactor after a partial meltdown at Chalk River in Ontario, Canada. Team members rehearsed their tasks on a replica and were permitted to work inside the highly radioactive area for only about 90 seconds at a time. Carter later said that radioactivity remained measurable in his urine for about six months.
Following his father's death, Carter left active naval service in October 1953 and returned to Georgia to manage the family's peanut-farming and warehouse business.
Carter was elected to the Georgia State Senate in 1962 and governor of Georgia in 1970.
Initially given little chance of winning the 1976 presidential election, Carter made an inauspicious early campaign appearance in Des Moines, Iowa, in February 1975. His team rented a hotel ballroom and prepared refreshments for 200 people, but only three attended.
Carter was considered such a long-shot candidate that, according to a frequently repeated family anecdote, his mother Lillian responded to his presidential ambition by asking, “President of what?”
While campaigning for president in 1976, Carter told the National Association of Record Merchandisers that he had listened to Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead and Led Zeppelin while serving as governor of Georgia.
Carter won the Democratic nomination and defeated incumbent president Gerald Ford on November 2, 1976. Carter received 50.1 percent of the popular vote and 297 electoral votes, compared with Ford's 48.0 percent and 240 electoral votes.
He served as the 39th president of the United States from January 20, 1977, to January 20, 1981.
In the summer of 1977, Elvis Presley telephoned Carter at the White House to seek help for a sheriff facing legal difficulties. Carter later recalled that Presley was “totally stoned” and that his sentences were “almost incoherent.”
On January 21, 1977, his first full day in office, Carter pardoned people who had committed specified violations of the Military Selective Service Act during the Vietnam War era. The pardon did not cover military deserters as a class and contained exceptions for serious acts of force or violence.
Carter delivered his nationally televised “Crisis of Confidence” speech on July 15, 1979. Although it became widely known as the “malaise speech,” he never used the word “malaise.” Instead, he warned of “a crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.”
It has been rumored that Carter once sent a jacket to the dry cleaner with the authentication card used in the nuclear-launch process still in a pocket, but the story has never been firmly established.
The Carter family had a Siamese cat named Misty Malarky Ying Yang during his presidency. The cat belonged to his daughter Amy.
Carter watched more than 400 films at the White House and Camp David during his four-year presidency.
Carter practised speed-reading and claimed that he could read 2,000 words a minute with 95 percent comprehension.
Only three US presidents have graduated from federal service academies: Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower graduated from West Point, while Carter graduated from Annapolis.
From a young age, Carter showed a deep commitment to Christianity. A longtime Sunday-school teacher and deacon, he taught at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains. He read the Bible daily while in office, prayed several times a day and described Jesus Christ as the driving force in his life.
In 2000, Carter severed his ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, objecting particularly to its increasingly restrictive doctrines concerning women. He nevertheless remained a Baptist and continued serving as a deacon and Sunday-school teacher at his local church.
After his presidency, Carter continued to live in the ranch house that he and Rosalynn had built in Plains in 1961. A widely circulated 2018 profile valued it at $167,000 and noted his frugal habits, including shopping at a local Dollar General.
Carter had the longest post-presidency of any US president. He surpassed Herbert Hoover's previous record in September 2012 and ultimately lived for 43 years and 344 days after leaving office.
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter founded the Carter Center in 1982 in partnership with Emory University. The nonprofit organisation works to prevent and resolve conflicts, strengthen democracy and human rights, and combat disease.
Jimmy Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”
On December 29, 2024, Jimmy Carter died peacefully at his home in Plains, Georgia, after spending nearly two years in hospice care.
Carter was 100 years and 89 days old, making him the longest-lived president in US history and the first to reach the age of 100.
Sources: The Carter Center; US Naval History and Heritage Command; National Archives; American Presidency Project; NobelPrize.org; Georgia Humanities; UPI; The New York Times; Los Angeles Times; Federation of American Scientists; Songfacts; Hutchinson Encyclopedia © RM 2014. Helicon Publishing is a division of RM.
Carter grew up on his family's farm near Plains. From childhood, he wanted to attend the United States Naval Academy, obtain a college education and serve in the US Navy.
Jimmy Carter married Eleanor Rosalynn Smith on July 7, 1946, in Plains. He was 21 and she was 18.
The couple had four children: John William “Jack” (born 1947), James Earl “Chip” III (born 1950), Donnel Jeffrey “Jeff” (born 1952) and Amy Lynn (born 1967).
Amy Carter became a political activist. She was arrested during demonstrations against apartheid and in a 1986 protest against CIA recruitment at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Carter graduated with distinction from the United States Naval Academy in 1946 and served as a naval officer. After surface duty, he became a submariner and was selected for Captain Hyman Rickover's nuclear-submarine program.
In 1952, Carter led a 23-man US Navy team that helped clean up the damaged NRX reactor after a partial meltdown at Chalk River in Ontario, Canada. Team members rehearsed their tasks on a replica and were permitted to work inside the highly radioactive area for only about 90 seconds at a time. Carter later said that radioactivity remained measurable in his urine for about six months.
Following his father's death, Carter left active naval service in October 1953 and returned to Georgia to manage the family's peanut-farming and warehouse business.
Carter was elected to the Georgia State Senate in 1962 and governor of Georgia in 1970.
Initially given little chance of winning the 1976 presidential election, Carter made an inauspicious early campaign appearance in Des Moines, Iowa, in February 1975. His team rented a hotel ballroom and prepared refreshments for 200 people, but only three attended.
Carter was considered such a long-shot candidate that, according to a frequently repeated family anecdote, his mother Lillian responded to his presidential ambition by asking, “President of what?”
While campaigning for president in 1976, Carter told the National Association of Record Merchandisers that he had listened to Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead and Led Zeppelin while serving as governor of Georgia.
Carter won the Democratic nomination and defeated incumbent president Gerald Ford on November 2, 1976. Carter received 50.1 percent of the popular vote and 297 electoral votes, compared with Ford's 48.0 percent and 240 electoral votes.
He served as the 39th president of the United States from January 20, 1977, to January 20, 1981.
In the summer of 1977, Elvis Presley telephoned Carter at the White House to seek help for a sheriff facing legal difficulties. Carter later recalled that Presley was “totally stoned” and that his sentences were “almost incoherent.”
On January 21, 1977, his first full day in office, Carter pardoned people who had committed specified violations of the Military Selective Service Act during the Vietnam War era. The pardon did not cover military deserters as a class and contained exceptions for serious acts of force or violence.
Carter delivered his nationally televised “Crisis of Confidence” speech on July 15, 1979. Although it became widely known as the “malaise speech,” he never used the word “malaise.” Instead, he warned of “a crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.”
It has been rumored that Carter once sent a jacket to the dry cleaner with the authentication card used in the nuclear-launch process still in a pocket, but the story has never been firmly established.
The Carter family had a Siamese cat named Misty Malarky Ying Yang during his presidency. The cat belonged to his daughter Amy.
Carter watched more than 400 films at the White House and Camp David during his four-year presidency.
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| Official portrait of President Jimmy Carter by Robert Templeton, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. Wikimedia |
Carter practised speed-reading and claimed that he could read 2,000 words a minute with 95 percent comprehension.
Only three US presidents have graduated from federal service academies: Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower graduated from West Point, while Carter graduated from Annapolis.
From a young age, Carter showed a deep commitment to Christianity. A longtime Sunday-school teacher and deacon, he taught at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains. He read the Bible daily while in office, prayed several times a day and described Jesus Christ as the driving force in his life.
In 2000, Carter severed his ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, objecting particularly to its increasingly restrictive doctrines concerning women. He nevertheless remained a Baptist and continued serving as a deacon and Sunday-school teacher at his local church.
After his presidency, Carter continued to live in the ranch house that he and Rosalynn had built in Plains in 1961. A widely circulated 2018 profile valued it at $167,000 and noted his frugal habits, including shopping at a local Dollar General.
Carter had the longest post-presidency of any US president. He surpassed Herbert Hoover's previous record in September 2012 and ultimately lived for 43 years and 344 days after leaving office.
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter founded the Carter Center in 1982 in partnership with Emory University. The nonprofit organisation works to prevent and resolve conflicts, strengthen democracy and human rights, and combat disease.
Jimmy Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”
On December 29, 2024, Jimmy Carter died peacefully at his home in Plains, Georgia, after spending nearly two years in hospice care.
Carter was 100 years and 89 days old, making him the longest-lived president in US history and the first to reach the age of 100.
Sources: The Carter Center; US Naval History and Heritage Command; National Archives; American Presidency Project; NobelPrize.org; Georgia Humanities; UPI; The New York Times; Los Angeles Times; Federation of American Scientists; Songfacts; Hutchinson Encyclopedia © RM 2014. Helicon Publishing is a division of RM.
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