© Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post
Jimmy Carter, the Georgia peanut farmer who became the 39th president of the United States, was known for his no-frills lifestyle, early focus on climate change and concerns about growing divisions in the country.
During his single White House term, from 1977 to 1981 — almost one-third of which was clouded by the 444-day-long Iran hostage crisis — the Navy veteran brokered a historic peace accord between Egypt and Israel and pioneered renewable energy as a cheaper alternative to foreign oil. He was the first Democratic president since 1888 not to win reelection. As the United States’ longest-living former president, he spent decades working to advance peace and humanitarianism, efforts for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Here are some facts that may surprise you about Mr. Carter, who died on Sunday at the age of 100 at his home in Plains, Georgia.
1. Jimmy Carter was the first future president born in a hospital
James Earl Carter Jr. was delivered on Oct. 1, 1924, in a 60-bed hospital in Plains. — becoming the first future president to be born in such a setting. A hospital birth may seem unremarkable today, but at the beginning of the 20th century, nearly all childbirths still took place at home, including the majority at the time of Mr. Carter’s birth. His mother, Lillian, was a registered nurse at the unit in which he was delivered, and his father, James Earl, was a farmer. Four years later, the family moved from Plains to a nearby farm — where his father grew corn, cotton, peanuts and sugar cane.
2. He was the first president to be inaugurated by a nickname
When Mr. Carter was sworn into office in 1977 on a family Bible held by his wife, Rosalynn Carter, he took the presidential oath of office using the name “Jimmy” instead of “James” — his actual first name, which he rarely used. Bill Clinton and Joe Biden, who also used their nicknames in the White House, opted to be sworn in using their full names during their inaugurations. After Mr. Carter was sworn in, the organizers of his inauguration ceremony floated a giant peanut-shaped balloon in a parade to honor his roots.
3. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were married longer than any other presidential couple
They were married for 77 years. The day after Jimmy took Rosalynn on a date to the movies — in 1945 — he told his mother that he knew he wanted to marry Rosalynn. A year later, when he was 21 and she was 18, they were married. “Over the years, we became not only friends and lovers, but partners,” Rosalynn said close to seven decades later, at Jimmy’s 90th birthday celebration. “He has always thought I could do anything.” The pair had known each other for all of Rosalynn’s life; she lived down the road in their hometown of Plains and was a frequent playmate of Ruth Carter, Jimmy’s little sister.
After leaving the White House, the couple returned full time to the house they lived in before he entered politics, a two-bedroom rancher that is valued at less than the armored Secret Service vehicles parked outside.
Rosalynn Carter died in November 2023 at the age of 96.
4. He installed solar water-heating panels on the roof of the White House West Wing
In 1979, Mr. Carter unveiled solar panels atop the White House as part of his ambitious plan to reduce expensive oil imports by boosting U.S. use of sustainable energy. “Harnessing the power of the sun to enrich our lives as we move from our crippling dependence on foreign oil,” he said at the time, is “one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.”
The panels were removed by the Reagan administration in 1986 during White House repairs. Mr. Carter had great ambitions for solar power — which he hoped by the year 2000 would account for 20 percent of U.S. energy needs, a goal that was not reached.
5. Peanut One set the technological standard for campaign jets
Peanut One, otherwise known as Mr. Carter’s 1976 campaign aircraft, served as the headquarters for Mr. Carter’s Democratic primary season when the candidate was on the move. Its specialized computer equipment — designed to keep the campaign operating from 30,000 feet — attracted the admiration of political journalists, including The Washington Post’s David S. Broder. “Hooked in by elaborate circuitry to the schedule, media, and organization staff in the Atlanta headquarters,” Broder reported in 1976, the campaign computer was connected to polling data and newspaper records. “As impressive as it is, the computer in the back takes second place to that housed up front, inside the head of Jimmy Carter.” Mr. Carter, who was nicknamed the “computer-driven candidate” by The Post that year, was known for a coolheaded approach to political decisions.
6. Mr. Carter’s judicial appointments were the most racially and gender-diverse at the time
Mr. Carter named 57 minority judges and 41 female judges to the federal judiciary during his single term in the White House, which, according to the Carter Center, was more than all previous presidents combined. One of those judges was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whom Mr. Carter nominated in 1980 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The 39th president, who came of age politically during the civil rights era but came to embrace the movement publicly later in his political career, also appointed the first Black woman to serve in a presidential Cabinet — Patricia Roberts Harris.
7. A devout Christian, he struggled with abortion but later supported same-sex marriage
A lifelong Baptist who described himself as a “born again” Christian, Mr. Carter described his faith as foundational to his politics. During his presidency, Mr. Carter’s Christianity led him to personally oppose abortion, which he said he believed should not be federally funded through Medicaid — although he said he was able to “live with” the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion nationwide.
His faith continued to shape his positions after he left the White House, including on same-sex marriage. “I believe that Jesus would approve same-sex marriage,” he told an interviewer in 2015, after those unions were declared legal by the Supreme Court. Mr. Carter also moonlighted as a Sunday school teacher after leaving the White House, delivering more than 800 lessons at Maranatha Baptist Church on the edge of Plains. The lessons, delivered every two weeks, proved so popular that congregants lined up the night before to secure seats.
8. He made eradicating the Guinea worm a personal mission
The 39th president’s nonprofit organization — the Carter Center — launched its campaign to globally eradicate Guinea worm disease in 1986, when there were an estimated 3.5 million cases of the painful parasitic condition worldwide. There is no cure for the ancient disease, which is contracted by consuming a larval parasite in unfiltered water. Inside the body, the larvae grow into worms up to three feet long. By 2022, just 13 cases were reported worldwide, according to the Carter Center — which for decades supported governments in promoting clean drinking water and interrupting transmission chains. “I’d like for the last Guinea worm to die before I do,” Mr. Carter said at a news conference in 2015.
9. He spent 89 seconds inside a nuclear reactor in meltdown
Lt. Carter entered the reactor dressed in protective gear with two other specialists, exposing himself in 89 seconds to the same amount of radiation that the general population absorbs in one year. He later said his urine continued to test positive for radioactivity for six months.
