FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER DIES AT AGE 100 – He served as President from January 1977 to January 1981
Jimmy Carter, the earnest Georgia peanut farmer who as U.S. president struggled with a bad economy and the Iran hostage crisis but brokered peace between Israel and Egypt and later received the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work, died at his home in Plains, Georgia, on Sunday(December 29) , the Carter Center said. He was 100.
A Democrat, he served as president from January 1977 to January 1981 after defeating Republican President Gerald Ford in the 1976 U.S. election. Carter was swept from office four years later in an electoral landslide as voters embraced Republican challenger Ronald Reagan, the former actor and California governor.
Carter lived longer after his term in office than any other U.S. president. Along the way, he earned a reputation as a better former president than he was a president – a status he readily acknowledged.
Carter left office profoundly unpopular but worked energetically for decades on humanitarian causes.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 in recognition of his “untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”
Carter brokered the 1978 Camp David Accords that ushered in peace between Israel and Egypt, bringing Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat together for nearly two weeks of personal diplomacy.
Carter continued teaching Sunday school into his 90s at the small red-brick Maranatha Baptist Church in his home town of Plains, with his wife of more than 70 years, Rosalynn, sitting close to him.
“I’ve had a wonderful life,” Carter told reporters in Atlanta in 2015. “I’ve had thousands of friends. And I’ve had an exciting and adventurous and gratifying existence.”
