James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. (born October 1, 1924) served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981 and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office. Prior to becoming president, Carter served two terms in the Georgia Senate followed by the governorship of the state of Georgia, from 1971 to 1975,[2] and was a peanut farmer and naval officer. As president, Carter created two new cabinet-level departments: the Department of Energy and the Department of Education. He established a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties and the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II). Carter sought to put a stronger emphasis on human rights; he negotiated a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1979. His return of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama was seen as a major concession of US influence in Latin America, and Carter came under heavy criticism for it. His term came during a period of persistent stagflation in a number of countries, including the United States, which significantly damaged his popularity. The final year of his presidential tenure was marked by several major crises, including the 1979 takeover of the American embassy in Iran and holding of hostages by Iranian students, an unsuccessful rescue attempt of the hostages, serious fuel shortages, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. By 1980, Carter's disapproval ratings were significantly higher than his approval, and he was challenged by Ted Kennedy for the Democratic Party nomination in the 1980 election. Carter defeated Kennedy for the nomination, but lost the election to Republican Ronald Reagan. After leaving office, Carter and his wife Rosalynn founded The Carter Center in 1982,[3] a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization that works to advance human rights. He has traveled extensively to conduct peace negotiations, observe elections, and advance disease prevention and eradication in developing nations. Carter is a key figure in the Habitat for Humanity project,[4] and also remains particularly vocal on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Jimmy Carter is a native Georgian, born and raised in the tiny southwest Georgia hamlet of Plains near the larger town of Americus. The Carter family originated from southern England (Carter's paternal ancestor arrived in the American Colonies in 1635),[5] and had lived in the state of Georgia for several generations; his great-grandfather, Private L.B. Walker Carter (1832–1874), served in the Confederate States Army. The first president born in a hospital,[6] he was the eldest of four children of James Earl Carter and Bessie Lillian Gordy. Carter's father was a prominent business owner in the community and his mother was a registered nurse. He was a gifted student from an early age who always had a fondness for reading. By the time he attended Plains High School, he was also a star in basketball. He was greatly influenced by one of his high school teachers, Julia Coleman (1889–1973). While he was in high school he was in the Future Farmers of America , which later changed its name to the National FFA Organization , serving as the Plains FFA Chapter Secretary.[7] After high school, Carter enrolled at Georgia Southwestern College, in Americus. He would later apply to the United States Naval Academy and, after taking additional mathematics courses at Georgia Tech, he was admitted in 1943. Carter graduated 59th out of 820 midshipmen.[8] Carter had three younger siblings: his brother, William Alton "Billy" Carter (1937–1988), and sisters Gloria Carter Spann (1926–1990) and Ruth Carter Stapleton (1929–1983). During Carter's Presidency, his brother Billy was often in the news, often in an unflattering light. He married Rosalynn Smith in 1946. They had four children: John William "Jack" Carter (born 1947); James Earl "Chip" Carter III (born 1950); Donnel Jeffrey "Jeff" Carter, (born 1952) and Amy Lynn Carter (born 1967). He is also a cousin of Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. on his mother's side. Carter served on surface ships and on diesel-electric submarines in the Atlantic and Pacific fleets. As a junior officer, he completed qualification for command of a diesel-electric submarine. He applied for the US Navy's fledgling nuclear submarine program run by then Captain Hyman G. Rickover. Rickover's demands on his men and machines were legendary, and Carter later said that, next to his parents, Rickover had the greatest influence on him. Carter has said that he loved the Navy, and had planned to make it his career. His ultimate goal was to become Chief of Naval Operations. Carter felt the best route for promotion was with submarine duty since he felt that nuclear power would be increasingly used in submarines. During service on the diesel-electric submarine USS Pomfret, Carter was almost washed overboard.[9] After six years of military service, Carter trained for the position of engineering officer in submarine USS Seawolf, then under construction.[10] Carter completed a non-credit introductory course in nuclear reactor power at Union College starting in March 1953. This followed Carter's first-hand experience as part of a group of American and Canadian servicemen who took part in cleaning up after a partial nuclear meltdown at Canada's Chalk River Laboratories reactor in 1952.[11][12] Upon the death of his father, James Earl Carter, Sr., in July 1953, Lieutenant Carter immediately resigned his commission, and he was discharged from the Navy on October 9, 1953.[13][14] This cut short his nuclear powerplant operator training, and he was never able to serve on a nuclear submarine, since the first boat of that fleet, the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), was launched on January 17, 1955, over a year after his discharge from the Navy.[15] After his naval service, Carter then took over and expanded his family business in Plains. There he was involved in a peanut farming accident that left him with a permanently bent finger. His farming business was successful, and during the 1970 gubernatorial campaign, he was considered a wealthy peanut farmer.[16] From a young age, Carter showed a deep commitment to Christianity, serving as a Sunday School teacher throughout his life. Even as President, Carter prayed several times a day, and professed that Jesus Christ was the driving force in his life. Carter had been greatly influenced by a sermon he had heard as a young man, called, "If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?"[17] Jimmy Carter started his career by serving on various local boards, governing such entities as the schools, hospitals, and libraries, among others. In the 1960s, he served two terms in the Georgia Senate from the fourteenth district of Georgia. His 1961 election to the state Senate, which followed the end of Georgia's County Unit System (per the Supreme Court case of Gray v. Sanders), was chronicled in his book Turning Point: A Candidate, a State, and a Nation Come of Age. The election involved corruption led by Joe Hurst, the sheriff of Quitman County; system abuses included votes from deceased persons and tallies filled with people who supposedly voted in alphabetical order. It took a challenge of the fraudulent results for Carter to win the election. Carter was reelected in 1964, to serve a second two-year term. For a time in State Senate he chaired its Education Committee.[18] In 1966, Carter declined running for re-election as a state senator to pursue a gubernatorial run. His first cousin, Hugh Carter, was elected as a Democrat and took over his seat in the Senate. In 1966, during the end of his career as a state senator, he flirted with the idea of running for the United States House of Representatives. His Republican opponent dropped out and decided to run for Governor of Georgia. Carter did not want to see a Republican Governor of his state, and, in turn, dropped out of the race for Congress and joined the race to become Governor. Carter lost the Democratic primary, but drew enough votes as a third place candidate to force the favorite, Ellis Arnall, into a runoff election, setting off a chain of events which resulted in the election of Lester Maddox. During this race Carter ran as a moderate alternative to both liberal Arnall and conservative Maddox.[18] Although he lost, his strong third place finish was viewed as a success for a little-known state senator.[18] For the next four years, Carter returned to his agriculture business and carefully planned for his next campaign for Governor in 1970, making over 1,800 speeches throughout the state. During his 1970 campaign, he ran an uphill populist campaign in the Democratic primary against former Governor Carl Sanders, labeling his opponent "Cufflinks Carl". Carter was never a segregationist, and refused to join the segregationist White Citizens' Council, prompting a boycott of his peanut warehouse. He also had been one of only two families which voted to admit blacks to the Plains Baptist Church.[19] However, he "said things the segregationists wanted to hear", according to historian E. Stanly Godbold.[20] Also, Carter's campaign aides handed out a photograph of his opponent celebrating with black basketball players.[21][22] Following his close victory over Sanders in the primary, he was elected Governor over Republican Hal Suit. Carter was sworn in as the 76th Governor of Georgia on January 12, 1971 and held this post for one term, until January 14, 1975. Governors of Georgia were not allowed to succeed themselves at the time. His predecessor as Governor, Lester Maddox, became the Lieutenant Governor. However, Carter and Maddox found little common ground during their four years of service, often publicly feuding with each other.[23][24] Carter declared in his inaugural speech that the time of racial segregation was over, and that racial discrimination had no place in the future of the state. He was the first statewide office holder in the Deep South to say this in public. Afterwards, Carter appointed many African Americans to statewide boards and offices. He was often called one of the "New Southern Governors" – much more moderate than their predecessors, and supportive of racial desegregation and expanding African-Americans' rights.