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Former President Jimmy Carter has died at the age of 100 at his home in Plains, Georgia, Sunday (December 29) afternoon, his son, Chip, confirmed to ABC News.
Carter, the 39th president in American history, lived longer than any other in U.S. history and was the only Georgian elected to the White House. The former president's death came one year after his wife, Rosalynn, died in November 2023.
Carter defeated incumbent President Gerald Ford in the 1976 election, but served one term after being defeated by then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election. Carter's lone term was marked by the Iran hostage crisis, the Three Mile Island accident, the Nicaraguan Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, as well as the escalation of the Cold War, ending détente by imposing a grain embargo, which led to a multinational boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
Carter's legacy grew after his presidency through his and his late wife's work at the Carter Center in Atlanta, which focused on promoting and expanding human rights, as well as his philanthropic causes, most notably Habitat for Humanity, receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
“People will be celebrating Jimmy Carter for hundreds of years. His reputation is only going to grow,” Rice University history professor Douglas Brinkley wrote in his book entitled 'The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter' via ABC News.