Jimmy Carter, the Georgia peanut farmer who became the 39th president of the United States during a time of gas shortages, Cold War drama and the Iran hostage crisis, died Sunday.

He was 100.

Carter — the longest-living president in US history — passed away in Plains, Ga. — the town where he was born — after spending nearly two years in hospice care.

He survived Rosalynn, his wife of 77 years, by a little over a year. She died at age 96 in November 2023.

The former president leaves behind four children, Jack, Chip, Jeff and Amy, as well as 11 grandchildren and 14 grandchildren. He was preceded in death by Rosalynn as well as one grandchild.

“My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” said Chip Carter, the former president’s son. 

“My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs. The world is our family because of the way he brought people together, and we thank you for honoring his memory by continuing to live these shared beliefs.”

The Carter Center confirmed his death Sunday with a simple statement: “Our founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, passed away this afternoon in Plains, Georgia.”

Carter’s grandson, Jason, previously said the former commander-in-chief was “experiencing the world as best he can” but was not awake every day in an update weeks before his death.

Still, he said they were able to talk and watch an Atlanta Braves game recently.

“I told him, I said: ‘Pawpaw, you know, when people ask me how you’re doing I say, ‘honestly I don’t know,’” Jason, 48, recalled to Southern Living.

“And he kind of smiled and he said, ‘I don’t know, myself.’

“It was pretty sweet,” Jason added.

Carter was sworn in on Jan. 20, 1977, after defeating Republican Gerald Ford, whose campaign was burdened by the political baggage he carried from his decision to pardon disgraced President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal.

He served only one tumultuous four-year term before being swept aside by Ronald Reagan — but in that time he racked up triumphs such as the historic Camp David peace accords, in which Israel and Egypt officially recognized each other’s governments.

“Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood,” he once said.

But there were also fiascoes, primarily the hostage crisis and a lame economy plagued by low growth and soaring interest rates.

“Few people ever have such fantastic luck and such rotten luck in the span of just a few years. Carter came out of nowhere and satisfied the public’s desire for an outsider who couldn’t find his way around Washington without a map,” said Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

“Until Donald Trump, Carter’s was probably the most astonishing victory in any presidential election of modern times.”

James Earl Carter Jr. was born in Plains on Oct. 1, 1924, the son of a grocer and a registered nurse.

He was a studious boy who avoided trouble and began working at his father’s store at the age of 10. His favorite childhood pastime was sitting with his father in the evenings, listening to baseball games and political programs on the battery-operated radio, according to biography.com.

Carter, a devout born-again Christian, entered the US Naval Academy in 1943.

His studies were accelerated because of World War II, and he graduated in 1946 — the same year he would marry the former Rosalynn Smith, with whom he would have four kids, Jack, James III, Donnel and Amy.

Carter was assigned to work on submarines, and in the early years of their marriage, the Carters moved frequently.

In 1952, he was ordered to work with Admiral Hyman Rickover on the US nuclear submarine program in Schenectady, NY.

Rickover’s powerful intellect and work ethic deeply impressed the young officer, who was honorably discharged from the Navy in 1953.

“I think, second to my own father, Rickover had more effect on my life than any other man,” Carter said later in life.

After the death of his father in July 1953, Carter returned to the family homestead in Plains to help his ailing mother, Bessie, by taking over the family farm.

He ran for the Georgia Senate in 1962, winning despite his relatively liberal views on civil rights for the deeply conservative and segregationist Peach State

Carter made a stab at the governor’s mansion in 1966, but those same liberal views wound up costing him — he finished a distant third in the Democratic primary, and the avowed segregationist Lester Maddox wound up winning the race.

But Georgia governors were limited to a single, four-year term in those days, and Carter retooled his liberal message — opposing forced busing and limiting appearances with black leaders — to better position himself with the electorate.

It worked, with Carter overcoming a Democratic primary field in 1970 that included former Gov. Carl Sanders and easily defeating Republican Hal Suit.

As governor, Carter streamlined the state’s bureaucracy and was considered a centrist reformer.

After leaving office, his ambitions went national, and he decided to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976, four years after uber-liberal George McGovern lost every state but Massachusetts to Nixon.

“I’ll never tell a lie. I’ll never make a misleading statement. I’ll never betray the confidence that any of you had in me. And I’ll never avoid a controversial issue,” he vowed.

But Carter’s presidency was marred by events both within and out of his control.

In 1979, a pair of international crises erupted — the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, which led Carter to cancel US participation in the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics; and the storming of the US Embassy in Tehran, following which 52 Americans were held captive for 444 days.

A failed rescue effort by the US military in April 1980 led to the deaths of eight American service members, and crippled Carter’s credibility on national security ahead of that year’s presidential election.

Carter was also buffeted by economic forces, as the OPEC-induced fuel crisis of the early 1970s helped lead to paralyzing “stagflation,” a brutal cocktail of persistently high inflation combined with high unemployment and stagnant demand.

On July 15, 1979, Carter gave a televised speech in which he said the nation was going through a “crisis of confidence … threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.”

The so-called “malaise” speech, though Carter never used the word, was followed days later by the dismissal of six cabinet members — including the attorney general, treasury secretary and energy secretary. What was meant as a bold renewal of the Carter White House instead came off as an administration falling apart — led by a blame-ducking president.

Carter’s image wasn’t helped by a few comical incidents, such as when the devout Baptist gave an interview to Playboy magazine just before the 1976 election in which he overshared by saying that at times “I’ve committed adultery in my heart.”

There was also the time Carter told reporters he’d had to fight off a swamp rabbit while fishing in a canoe near his Georgia home, leading to jokes that he’d been attacked by “a killer rabbit.”

“The inexperience and lack of friendships in DC caught up with Carter,” Sabato said. “He made loads of enemies and had few passionate allies. Among the enemies was Ted Kennedy, who helped bring an end to the Carter Presidency in 1980.”

Carter would win the Democratic nomination, but the bruising battle with the Massachusetts senator left the incumbent vulnerable to Reagan, the charismatic former California governor and Hollywood actor, who framed the election in stark terms when he asked Americans during his only debate with Carter: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

The Republican would hand Carter one of the most crushing election losses ever, winning 44 of the 50 states, while the Democrat took the other six plus the District of Columbia.

After leaving the White House, Carter turned his attention to humanitarian and charitable endeavors, notably his decades-long commitment to the Habitat for Humanity program, which developed housing for the poor, and the Carter Presidential Center to promote human rights.

Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 “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.”

“Just about everybody agrees Carter’s post-Presidency was the most productive in history. As one Carter opponent once told me, ‘What he is doing now [after the White House] almost makes enduring his years as President worth it,’” Sabato said.

Carter also indulged his lifelong love of baseball post-presidency, frequently attending Atlanta Braves games alongside Rosalynn. He threw out the ceremonial first pitch before Game 6 of the 1995 World Series when the Braves won their first championship since moving to Georgia from Milwaukee in 1966.

In August 2015, Carter underwent surgery to remove a mass from his liver and later disclosed that he had cancer.

Later that month, he held a news conference in which he said doctors had found melanoma, “four very small spots,” on his brain.

“I’m perfectly at ease with whatever comes,” he said, adding that he has led “a wonderful life.”

Later, Carter officially announced that an examination had revealed no trace of the four brain lesions.

Heading back to work, Carter finished his 32nd and last book, “Faith: A Journey for All,” emphasizing the importance of spirituality  in his life and on American history.

Carter was back in the hospital in October 2019 after a fall that caused a minor fracture in his pelvis. Another fall that same year required 14 stitches.

The former president marked his 98th birthday on Oct. 1, 2022, by attending a parade thrown in his honor in his hometown of Plains, where he and his wife had lived in the same house since 1961.

“He’s still 100% with it, even though daily life things are a lot harder now,” his grandson Jason told the Associated Press at the time. “But one thing I guarantee: He will watch all the Braves games this weekend.”

The following February, the Carter Center announced that the former president had decided to receive hospice care at home rather than receive “additional medical intervention” following a “series of short hospital stays.”

“I saw both of my grandparents yesterday,” Jason tweeted at the time. “They are at peace and — as always —their home is full of love.”

Rosalynn joined her husband in hospice care that November, passing away two days after her condition was made public.

“Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished,” Jimmy Carter said in a statement. “She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me.”

The former president made his final public appearances, confined to a wheelchair, at memorial and funeral services for his late wife.

During the former service, at Glenn Memorial Church on the campus of Emory University in Atlanta, Carter was positioned in the front row alongside President Biden and first lady Jill Biden, former President Bill Clinton and former first ladies Melania Trump, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama and Laura Bush.

In October, the 100-year-old filled out a mail-in ballot in the 2024 presidential election after reportedly saying he wished to live long enough to cast a vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.

The Carter Center at the time confirmed the former president had voted, but declined to specify whom he backed, citing the principle of the secret ballot.

However Chip Carter said the centenarian “absolutely” backed Harris and “never voted for a Republican in his life.”

Public observances will be held in Atlanta and Washington, DC followed by a private interment in Plains, where Carter will be buried alongside Rosalynn on a plot visible from the front porch of their home of more than six decades.

The full details of President Carter’s state funeral — including public events and motorcade routes — are still pending and will be released by the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region.

The Carter family asks in lieu of flowers that donations be made to The Carter Center, 453 John Lewis Freedom Parkway N.E., Atlanta, Ga. 30307.