Jimmy Carter, the oldest living former U.S. president in history, died today at his home in Plains, Georgia, at the age of 100. Carter served in the U.S. Navy from 1946 to 1953, then returned to Georgia to take up his family’s peanut-farming business. He was elected as Georgia’s 76th governor in 1970, and went on to win his bid for the U.S. presidency in 1976. During Carter’s single term as president, he worked to promote peace in the Middle East and limit the growth of nuclear weapons, and he pushed Congress to create the Department of Energy—but those years were also marked by a national energy crisis, double-digit inflation, and the Iran hostage crisis. After losing to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election, Carter returned to his modest home in Plains, Georgia, and soon began undertaking diplomatic missions, volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, and teaching Sunday school at his local church. In 2002, Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his lifelong work. Below, a collection of images of Jimmy Carter’s remarkable life of service.
Photos: Remembering Jimmy Carter’s Life of Service
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Read moreFormer President Jimmy Carter teaches a Sunday-school class at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, on August 23, 2015. The 90-year-old Carter gave a lesson to about 300 people filling the small Baptist church that he and his wife, Rosalynn, attend. #
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Read moreIn a 1952 photo, Lieutenant Jimmy Carter (top) peers at instruments on the submarine USS K-1. Directly in front of Carter, smoking a cigar, is Don Dickson. He had forgotten he ever served with Carter until he came upon the photo during Christmas of 1977. A friend got it to the White House where Carter wrote: "To my friend Donald Dickson - Jimmy Carter, USS K-1 to White House." #
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Read moreOn April 3, 1970, former State Senator Jimmy Carter listens to applause at the Capitol in Atlanta, Georgia, after announcing his candidacy for governor. In the background, his wife, Rosalynn, holds their 2-year-old daughter, Amy, who joined in the applause. #
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Read morePresidential candidate Jimmy Carter holds a handful of peanuts (referencing his career as a peanut farmer) during a campaign event in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1976. #
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Read moreIn July of 1976, Jimmy Carter speaks to the crowd gathered on the convention floor at New York's Madison Square Garden, after they nominated him to be the Democratic presidential candidate. #
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Read moreIn Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco, the crowd surges forward as Democratic presidential candidate Jimmy Carter, far left, wades out to shake hands following a rally on October 31, 1976. #
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Read morePresident-elect Jimmy Carter carries his daughter Amy's doll house from his home in Plains, Georgia, to a truck that will transport it to their new home, the White House, on January 17, 1977. A worker from Carter's peanut warehouse gives a hand, and they are followed by a Secret Service agent. #
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Read moreU.S. President Jimmy Carter, center left, takes the oath of office as the 39th president of the United States, administered by Chief Justice of the United States Warren E. Burger, at the east portico of the Capitol in Washington, D.C, on January 20, 1977. Shown from left are former Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, Vice President Walter Mondale, Senator Hubert Humphrey, Rosalynn Carter (standing between Carter and Burger), and former President Gerald Ford, far right. #
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Read morePresident Jimmy Carter and first lady Rosalynn Carter, alongside Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh, meet with officials at the crippled Three Mile Island nuclear-power plant in 1979. #
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Read moreEgyptian President Anwar Sadat, left, U.S. President Jimmy Carter, center, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin clasp hands on the North Lawn of the White House after signing the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel on March 26, 1979. Sadat and Begin were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for accomplishing peace negotiations in 1978. The rest of the Arab world shunned Sadat, condemning his initiative for peace. President Carter was pivotal in bringing the two leaders to meet at Camp David. #
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Read moreIn this July 15, 1979, photo, the college student Chuck McManis watches President Jimmy Carter's nationally televised speech regarding the national energy crisis at a service station in Los Angeles, as an attendant fills up a customer's car. #
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Read moreAmy Carter runs up to her father to say goodbye on the South Lawn of the White House on November 30, 1979, as the president prepares to board a helicopter on his way to Camp David. #
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Read morePresident Jimmy Carter, left, and Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev, right, sign the documents of the SALT II Treaty in the Vienna Imperial Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria, on June 18, 1979. Behind the heads of state are, from left to right: National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, Soviet Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Dobrynin, and Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Ustinov. #
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Read moreA grim-faced President Carter, seated at a desk in the Oval Office of the White House, tells of the aborted rescue effort intended to get the 53 American hostages out of Iran, on April 25, 1980. Carter said the mission was scrubbed after an "equipment failure" and that no military hostilities occurred. In the failed mission, eight servicemen were killed and two aircraft were destroyed. #
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Read morePresident Jimmy Carter and first lady Rosalynn Carter host President-elect Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, on a tour of the White House prior to Inauguration Day, in 1981. #
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Read moreFormer President Jimmy Carter uses a handsaw to even an edge as he works on a Habitat for Humanity home in Pikeville, Kentucky, on June 16, 1997. Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, have volunteered a week of their time annually to Habitat for Humanity since 1984. #
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Read moreNobel Peace Prize winner and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter greets a torchlight procession from the balcony of the Grand Hotel in downtown Oslo, Norway, on December 10, 2002. Carter was awarded the prize for his "decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development." #
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Read moreNelson Mandela, former president of South Africa, shakes hands with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter during a ceremony marking his 89th birthday in Johannesburg on July 18, 2007. #
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Read moreFrom left: Former President George H. W. Bush, President-elect Barack Obama, President George W. Bush, former President Bill Clinton, and former President Jimmy Carter gather for a photo in the Oval Office on January 7, 2009, in Washington, D.C. #
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Read moreFormer President Jimmy Carter, center, and Chief Aviation Boatswain's Mate Raul Rodriguez pose wearing proximity suits during a tour of the amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu in San Diego, California, on March 10, 2012. Carter and his foundation's nearly 250 guests and flag officers spent the day visiting with sailors and Marines, seeing various areas of the ship and aircraft. #
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Read morePresident Barack Obama, former President Jimmy Carter, first lady Michelle Obama, and former President Bill Clinton wave from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the commemoration ceremony for the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 2013. #
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Read moreFormer President Jimmy Carter works between his wife, Rosalynn Carter, right, and the singer Trisha Yearwood, left, at a Habitat for Humanity building site in Memphis, Tennessee, on November 2, 2015. Behind Yearwood is her husband, the singer Garth Brooks. #
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Read moreThe 92-year-old former President Jimmy Carter discusses the meaning of a biblical passage during his Sunday-school lesson at the Maranatha Baptist Church in Carter's hometown of Plains, Georgia, on March 25, 2017. #
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Read moreFormer U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, sit together during a reception to celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary in Plains, Georgia, on July 10, 2021. #
John Bazemore / Reuters
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