Former US president Jimmy Carter died at his home in Plains, Georgia, on Sunday, the Carter Center said. He was 100.
Carter had been in hospice care since mid-February 2023 in Plains, the same small town where he was born and once ran a peanut farm before becoming governor of the Peach State and running for the White House.
Carter died “peacefully” at home, “surrounded by his family,” the Carter Center said in a statement. Carter was the longest-lived US president.
“My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights and unselfish love,” Chip Carter, the former president’s son, said in the statement.
Carter, who served as the 39th president of the US from 1977 to 1981, played a pivotal role in the establishment of diplomatic relations between the US and China on January 1, 1979.
World leaders react to Carter’s death
US President Joe Biden said in televised remarks that Jimmy Carter “lived a life measured not by words, but by his deeds.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer paid tribute to Jimmy Carter for his “lifelong dedication to peace.”
Cubans will remember Jimmy Carter “with gratitude,” the island’s leader Miguel Diaz-Canel said on Sunday.
Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on Sunday hailed Carter as “a symbol of humanitarian efforts” for his role in brokering the 1978 Camp David Accords.
“Jimmy Carter’s legacy is one of compassion, kindness, empathy, and hard work,” said Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Quick Facts of Jimmy Carter
BORN: October 1, 1924
DIED: December 29, 2024
BIRTH CITY: Plains, Georgia, the US
SPOUSE: Rosalynn Carter (1946-2023)
PRESIDENCY: 39th president of the United States, from 1977 to 1981
REELECTION: He lost his 1980 reelection bid to Republican Ronald Reagan
PRIZE: He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002
Significant foreign policy accomplishments
— the Panama Canal treaties
— the Camp David Accords, the treaty of peace between Egypt and Israel
— the SALT II treaty with the Soviet Union
— the establishment of US diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China
