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By Marni Rose McFall and Daniel Orton
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Former President Jimmy Carter celebrates his 100th birthday on Tuesday, becoming the first commander-in-chief to reach the milestone.
Fans and supporters in the U.S. and around the world have sent well-wishes to the 39th president, and his home state of Georgia has arranged a number of celebrations.
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Newsweek is looking back on the former President's legacy with 100 facts to celebrate 100 years.
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- His full name is James Earl Carter Jr.
- He was born in Plains, Georgia
- He was the first - and so far only - president to be born in Georgia
- Carter was the first president to be born after World War I
- He grew up on a peanut farm
- He graduated in the eleventh grade because his school did not have a twelfth grade
- Carter attended the United States Naval Academy
- He served as a lieutenant in the Navy
- Carter was a nuclear engineer by training and started undergraduate training at Georgia Southwestern College
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- In 1952, Carter, then a U.S. Navy officer with nuclear training, led a team to help prevent a potential nuclear meltdown at the Chalk River reactor in Canada. He had to be physically lowered into the damaged nuclear reactor in order to help clean, shut down and replace the reactor.
- He married Rosalynn Smith in 1946
- They had four children: John William (Jack), James Earl III (Chip), Donnel Jeffrey (Jeff), and Amy
- Carter claimed to have seen a UFO in 1969, filing a report with the International UFO Bureau in 1973 about the incident in Georgia
- He served as Georgia state senator from 1963 to 1967
- Carter was the 76th Governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975
- In a now infamous Playboy interview that was published weeks before the 1976 presidential election, Carter said, "I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times."
- Carter defeated incumbent Gerald Ford in the 1976 election
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- The two men remained friends. At an event in 2000 alongside Ford, Carter said, "If you ask me, if you ask a historian, 'of all the former presidents that have served in this country in the last 200 years who are the two that have become the closest personal friends,' it would be the two on the stage tonight."
- He was the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981
- He was 52 years old when he was inaugurated as president
- Carter was the first U.S. president to be sworn in using a nickname, "Jimmy," instead of his formal name, James
- He is the sixth - and most recent - president to be called James, after Madison, Monroe, Polk, Buchanan and Garfield. James remains the most common first name for presidents. John is the next most common name: Kennedy, the two Adamses, Tyler and Calvin Coolidge, whose first name was John.
- He reportedly sold the presidential yacht and banned the playing of "Hail to the Chief"
- Carter was the first president to walk from the Capitol to the White House following his inauguration ceremony
- His vice president was Walter Mondale, who died in 2021 aged 93
- Carter faced significant challenges due to inflation and unemployment during his term
- He created the Department of Energy in 1977
- He promoted energy conservation during the 1970s oil crisis
- He famously wore a sweater during a televised speech in 1977 to promote energy savings
- Carter signed the Panama Canal treaties in 1977, returning control of the canal to Panama
- Carter pardoned Vietnam War draft dodgers in 1977
- He deregulated the airline, trucking, and railroad industries
- He brokered the historic Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel in 1978 and visited both countries many times during his time as president
- He created the Department of Education in 1979
- Carter installed solar panels on the White House in 1979. President Ronald Reagan later had them removed.
- In 1979, he was the first president to host a papal visit at the White House
- He restored U.S. citizenship to Confederate President Jefferson Davis
- His administration normalized diplomatic relations with China in 1979, and he was the first president to recognize the People's Republic of China officially
- He was instrumental in the signing of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks II (SALT II) agreement
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- Carter signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act in 1980, protecting over 100 million acres and more than doubling the size of the National Park System
- He supported the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty
- He had the U.S. Olympic team boycott the 1980 games in Moscow
- The end of his presidency was dominated by the Iran hostage crisis, an energy crisis, the Three Mile Island accident, the Nicaraguan Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
- 52 Americans were held hostage in Iran for 444 days during his presidency
- Operation Eagle Claw, an attempt to rescue 53 embassy staff held captive at the Embassy of the United States in Tehran, failed. Eight servicemen died
- Carter once said his biggest regret as president was not getting the hostages back from Iran sooner
- Over his four-year presidency, Carter watched over 400 movies at the White House and at Camp David, including Network, Jaws, and Airplane.
- 9.8 million jobs were created during his administration
- He was the first U.S. president to visit Sub-Saharan Africa during his term
- Carter's presidency saw the first successful vaccine for hepatitis B
- Carter signed a bill that deregulated the beer brewing industry, inadvertently contributing to the modern craft beer movement
- Carter is the only president to have served a full term and not appointed a single justice to the Supreme Court
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- He was defeated in the 1980 presidential election by Ronald Reagan, who won in a landslide after a sometimes close race
- He founded the Carter Center in 1982, which focuses on human rights, democracy, and public health.
- Carter helped broker a ceasefire in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1994, acting as a private citizen through the Carter Center
- He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999
- His diplomatic work in Haiti helped avoid a war there in the 1990s
- In 2000, after the Southern Baptist Convention said that it would not permit women to become pastors, he renounced his membership
- He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for work associated with the Carter Center
- Carter criticized the Bush administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina in 2004
- He has written over 30 books, including poetry and political memoirs
- He has written two books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In a 2006 book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, he said that Israel's control and construction of settlements have been the primary obstacles to peace in the Middle East.
- In 2007 he founded the New Baptist Covenant organization for social justice
- His favorite food is grits, and the dish was reportedly on the menu for the Carter's first breakfast in the White House. He also had a fondness for cheese and dairy products, according to a 1976 New York Times article.
- Carter has been heavily involved in efforts to eradicate Guinea worm disease, reducing global cases from millions to just a handful
- He and his late wife Rosalynn were known for their work with Habitat for Humanity
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- Carter survived brain cancer in 2015. He announced that he had cancer in August that year, after doctors discovered a melanoma that had spread to his brain. He announced he had beaten cancer that December.
- Carter was a Sunday School teacher in his local church, continuing to teach into his 90s
- He is a devout Baptist and was raised in a Southern Baptist household in Georgia and has been an active member of the Maranatha Baptist Church
- Carter was a vocal critic of the Iraq War and dubbed it the worst foreign policy mistake in U.S. history
- He has monitored over 100 elections in more than 30 countries in an effort to uphold democratic process
- His presidential library is located in Atlanta, Georgia
- His daughter, Amy Carter, was known for bringing her Siamese cat, Misty Malarky Ying Yang, to the White House
- His mother, Lillian Gordy Carter, was a well-known nurse and activist who published two books during her son's presidency
- His younger brother, Billy Carter, was involved in several controversies during his presidency. The most notable of these is often referred to as the "Billygate," and involved Billy's questionable financial and political dealings with the Libyan government.
- Carter was portrayed by actor Dan Aykroyd in Saturday Night Live sketches
- His son Jack Carter ran for U.S. Senate in Nevada in 2006 but lost to the Republican incumbent
- His grandson, Jason Carter, ran for Governor of Georgia in 2014 and lost to the Republican incumbent
- Carter has outlived his three younger siblings, all of whom died of pancreatic cancer in their late fifties or early sixties in the decade after Carter left the White House
- Carter's father, James Earl Carter Sr., also died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 58, and his mother died aged 85 from breast cancer, in 1983
- He received three Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for his audiobooks Our Endangered Values, A Full Life: Reflections at 90 and Faith - A Journey for All
- He is the third oldest person to have ever won a Grammy, when he won at the age of 94
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- He is the oldest living Grammy winner, and his been nominated nine times
- His presidential campaign used the song "Why Not the Best?", written by Harlan Howard. His campaign biography shares the same name.
- He was critical of President Barack Obama's use of drone strikes in the Middle East
- His wife Rosalynn Carter was an active first lady and continued advocating for mental health reform after leaving the White House
- His hobbies included painting, fly fishing, woodworking, cycling, tennis and skiing
- He holds an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Notre Dame.
- Carter has outlived two of his successors as president, and their first ladies, as well as his own vice president and first lady
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- He was married to Rosalynn for 77 years until her death in November 2023. They became the longest-wed presidential couple in 2019.
- In 2011, he surpassed the record for longest presidential retirement, previously held by President Herbert Hoover, who lived for 31 years after leaving office in 1933 and died aged 90
- In 2017, Carter was awarded the Gerald R. Ford Medal for Distinguished Public Service and said, "The words I spoke about my dear friend both at my inauguration and at his funeral still ring true today for myself and for our nation: I thank my predecessor of all he did to heal our land." Ford died in 2006, aged 93.
- He likes poetry, particularly the work of the Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas
- Carter was reportedly a highly proficient speed reader. At one point, he claimed to be able to read 2,000 words per minute, which helped him keep up with the vast amount of information a president needs to absorb.
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- He was a friend of Elvis Presley and after the star's death said Presley "changed the face of American popular culture"
- Carter was reportedly distantly related to June Carter Cash. The 39th president and Johnny Cash were also friends: Johnny and June Carter Cash performed at Carter's presidential inauguration in 1977, and Johnny Cash later visited the White House during Carter's presidency.
- Some of his favorite music artists include Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan
- He denounced the U.S. Capitol attack and called it a "national tragedy"
- Joe Biden was the first senator to endorse Carter's presidential run in 1976, and Carter returned the favor in 2020 when Biden ran for president
- In February, he became the first former president to be honored with a White House Christmas ornament while still alive. It is shaped like an anchor, in a nod to his Navy service, according to the Associated Press.
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