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, Reuters reports.
A Democrat, he served as president from January 1977 to January 1981 after defeating incumbent 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.
In recent years, the Georgia native suffered from several health issues including melanoma that spread to his liver and brain, although he had initially responded well to treatment.
Carter decided to receive hospice care and "spend his remaining time at home with his family" instead of undergoing additional medical intervention, the Carter Center said on February 18.
Carter, who lived longer than any other president in U.S. history, was a Democrat who served in the White House from January 1977 to January 1981. Carter also lived longer after his term in office than any other occupant of the Oval Office, earning a reputation as a better former president than he was a president - a status he 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 defeated the Republican incumbent Gerald Ford in the 1976 election to become the 39th U.S. president but lost in an electoral landslide to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980 after a single term in office widely considered a failure.
The Iran hostage crisis shrouded his presidency. Iranian revolutionaries seized American diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 52 hostages for 444 days before finally freeing them the day Carter left office. Carter came off looking feeble after a military rescue mission he ordered in 1980 ended in failure with eight U.S. troops dying in an aircraft mishap.
Carter brokered the 1978 Camp David Accords that ushered in peace between Middle East enemies Israel and Egypt, bringing Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat together for nearly two weeks of personal diplomacy. Sadat and Begin were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize but not Carter.
After his presidency, Carter returned to his peanut farm in Plains, Georgia, and succeeded in remaking his image. He created the Carter Center to carry out his humanitarian efforts.
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."
