Jimmy Carter, who from 1977 to 1981 served as the 39th president of the U.S., died yesterday at his home in Plains, Ga. At 100, he was the longest-living president in American history. Here’s our obituary.
Carter was a lifelong farmer who worked with his hands building houses for the poor well into his 90s. He grew up on a peanut farm and served in the Navy before serving as governor of Georgia. In 1976, with Walter Mondale as his running mate, he secured the presidency, winning the popular vote with 50.1 percent and securing 297 electoral votes.
His death sets the stage for the first presidential funeral since 2018. Such occasions traditionally prompt a cease-fire in America’s fractious political wars, as the nation’s leaders pause to remember and bid farewell to one of their own.
Post-presidential career: Carter lost his bid for re-election to Ronald Reagan and left office as one of the most unpopular commanders in chief in modern times. But rather than vanish from view or focus on moneymaking, he established the Carter Center to promote peace, fight disease and combat social inequality, and he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
Carter was a disciplined man of integrity and rock-solid values, and his life offers countless lessons for leaders everywhere, members of The Times’s Editorial Board write.
According to TheNewYorkTimes, “It was a very terrible responsibility.” In a never-before-seen interview from 2006, Carter discussed his time as a Cold War president and his legacy.
Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, who died last year, were married for 77 years, longer than any other couple who lived in the White House.
