The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Atlanta

Time Line:

1924, October 1: James Earl Carter, Jr. is born.

1946, June 5: Jimmy Carter graduates with distinction from the Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland.

Ensign Carter serves on the USS Wyoming and the USS Mississippi for two years, and volunteered to serve two more years on the submarine USS Pomfret.

Admiral Hyman G. Rickover selected Carter for the elite developing nuclear propulsion program. He was assigned to Schenectady, New York where he took graduate courses in nuclear engineering and nuclear physics. He worked on nuclear propulsion design for the Atomic Energy Commission. He worked on the design team for the pre-conditioning crew of the nuclear powered USS Seawolf.

1953, July: Lieutenant Carter resigned his commission and left active duty in October 1953, ending his promising career in the Navy. His father had died of cancer. Carter made the decision to return to Plains, Georgia to manage the family peanut farm.

A day at the office

Politics:

After returning to Plains, Jimmy Carter served on boards, including the Sumpter County Board of Education, later serving as its chairman. He won the State Senate race after a contentious election and served from 1963 to 1967.

In 1970, Carter was elected Governor of Georgia. Of note, Jimmy Carter stated in his inaugural address that the time for racial segregation was over. He served as governor from 1971 to 1975.

In 1976, Governor Carter was a dark-horse candidate for the Presidency of the United States against an incumbent. He won!

President Carter's greatest foreign policy accomplishment was negotiating the historic Camp David accords leading to the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel which remains in effect today. The biggest problems during his four years were the Iran hostage crisis and stagflation, an unusual combination of inflation and recession.

A day at the office

Much of President Carter's best work was done after his presidency. In 2002, he won the Nobel Peace 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."