RAPID CITY, S.D. (KOTA) –
Leading up to America’s 250th birthday next month, we’re revealing things you may not know about our presidents.
We are featuring a man who won the Nobel Peace Prize and was the first president born in a hospital.
James Earle Carter Jr. was born on October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia. He graduated from the U.S Naval Academy in 1946.
That same year, he would marry Rosalynn Smith, also from Plains. The couple had four children.
Carter spent 7 years in the Navy. In 1953, as he was getting ready to be an engineering officer on the submarine Seawolf, his father died.
He would return to Plains to run the family peanut farm.
His political career began in 1962. He was elected to the Georgia State Senate. The democrat ran for governor in 1962 and came in third. He would try again in 1970, and this time, he won the Georgia State House.
Near the end of his term as governor in 1974, he announced his candidacy for president. he campaigned the next two years, telling potential voters, “I’ll never tell a lie.” He would get the Democratic nomination in 1976 and pick Walter Mondale as his running mate.
Carter would defeat Gerald Ford with 51 percent of the popular vote to become the 39th President of the United States.
His most significant accomplishments were brokering a deal to end the war between Israel and Egypt, resulting in the Camp David Accords, and reopening diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
But unemployment was high the economy struggled. It was defined as “Stagflation” Many Americans blamed Carter for not having an effective plan to address the economy.
And then there was the hostage crisis in Iran. The Shah was deposed and replaced by the Ayatollah Khomeini. U.S. diplomatic staff was taken hostage. A secret military mission to free the hostage failed. The standoff lasted 444 days.
Carter’s failure to free the hostages led to his defeat by Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election. The hostages in Iran were released on January 21, 1981, one day after Ronald Reagan’s inauguration.
After he left the White House, he became a humanitarian. Carter and his wife established the non-profit Carter Center in Atlanta. They built homes for “Habitat for Humanity”. Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
He was diagnosed with cancer in 2015 and died in 2024. Jimmy Carter was 100 years old. The oldest living president.
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