Jimmy Carter has witnessed many milestones in his life.
The 39th president of the United States gets to celebrate one of his own Tuesday when he turns 100 years old.
WATCH ANYTIME FOR FREE
>Stream NBC10 Boston news for free, 24/7, wherever you are. |
Born in Plains, Georgia, on Oct. 1, 1924, Carter announced his plans to run for the presidency 50 years ago in December. He went on to win the 1976 election, besting Gerald Ford in Electoral College votes 297-241.
Carter is now the first president to become a centenarian, living 43 years (and counting) after leaving the Oval Office in 1981.
Get updates on what's happening in Boston to your inbox. Sign up for our >News Headlines newsletter.
Jimmy Carter at 100
The legacy of the 39th president in U.S. history has been written, rewritten and rewritten again. Here's a look back at the past century in the life of "The Peanut Farmer."
One of the many presidential records Carter's longevity has created is the number of American commanders-in-chief (17) he has overlapped with over his life.
Let's take a look at that list of presidents and when they served:
William Howard Taft
Born in September 1857, Taft became the 27th president of the United States when he won the 1908 election over William Jennings Bryan.
He was a one-term president who eventually sat as chief justice of the United States from 1921 through 1930 -- the only president to hold the highest seat on the Supreme Court.
A month after resigning as chief justice in February 1930, Taft died at the age of 72. He intersected with Carter for the first five-plus years of the future president's life.
Calvin Coolidge
Carter's life did not cross over with the 28th and 29th presidents of the United States, Woodrow Wilson.
Wilson, who was born on December 1856, died eight months before Carter was born.
Wilson's successor, Warren G. Harding, served from 1921 until his sudden death on Aug. 2, 1923. Then Vice President Calvin Coolidge succeeded to the presidency.
By the time of Carter's birth, Coolidge had been in the White House for more than a year. That fall, he went on to win the 1924 election over John W. Davis.
Like Taft, Coolidge's life overlapped with Carter's for less than a decade as he died in January 1933.
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover was elected as the 31st president of the United States when Carter was just 4 years old. Nonetheless, the two presidents did share more than four decades together.
Hoover make it to his 90th birthday in August 1964 before succumbing to massive internal bleeding just two months later.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
FDR defeated Hoover in a landslide victory in the 1932 presidential election.
Roosevelt's four-term presidency remains an anomaly in U.S. history, putting him in position to shape the modern Democratic Party — the same party Carter would come to inherit over three decades later.
FDR's fourth term ended prematurely when he died in 1945, and he overlapped with Carter for just 20 years.
Harry S. Truman
Truman did not make it to see his ninth decade, dying at the age of 88, but he did live into the 1970s — long enough to most likely hear about a young Georgia politician making waves in the Democratic Party.
The 33rd president of the United States, Truman completed what would have been Roosevelt's fourth term before winning election in 1948.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Like Taft, the 34th president of the United States holds a special distinction amongst presidents — he's the only one to achieve five-star rank as general of the Army while alive (George Washington was bestowed the distinction as part of the bicentennial celebration in 1976).
Eisenhower, known for planning and supervising two of the most consequential military campaigns of World War II (the North Africa campaign and the invasion of Normandy), served the top post in the nation from 1953 to 1961.
He lived until March 28, 1969, overlapping almost 45 years with the soon-to-be president from Georgia.
John F. Kennedy
The 43-year-old senator from Massachusetts was the youngest politician elected president, and one of just three to be in their 40s when they took over the Oval Office (Clinton and Obama).
Kennedy's youth was a stark contrast to Ike, who was elected at 62 in the 1950s.
While Kennedy's election symbolized change in America, the 35th president's term was cut short when he was assassinated in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.
Lyndon B. Johnson
The last of the presidents not to see Carter win election in 1976, LBJ became the 36th president upon JFK's death.
Johnson ran and won in the 1964 election. And while he was eligible for another full term since he had served less than two years of Kennedy's term, Johnson dropped out of the race due to his growing unpopularity over the Vietnam war.
Johnson's vice president, Hubert Humphrey entered the race and lost to Richard Nixon.
Johnson died on Jan. 22, 1973, at the age of 64.
Richard M. Nixon
Nixon resigned from office on Aug. 9, 1974 as a result of the Watergate scandal — ending his second term early and becoming the only U.S. president to ever step down as commander-in-chief.
He died in 1994 and lived through the entirety of the Carter presidency.
Gerald Ford
Nixon's successor had the rare distinction for modern-day presidents — taking over the country in the middle of the summer versus the beginning of the calendar year.
Ford went on to make history of his own as the only president to serve without winning an election for president or vice president. That's because he was defeated for election to a full term in 1976.
He also held the distinction as the longest-living U.S. president when he passed away on Dec. 26, 2006, at the age of 93, a title that Carter has since taken over.
Ronald Reagan
Reagan, the Hollywood actor-turned-politician, also made it to 93 before dying in June 2004.
The 40th U.S. president took over after Carter's one-term presidency in 1981, leading the country through the decade before being succeeded by his vice president in the 1988 election.
George H. W. Bush
Born the same year as Jimmy Carter, the 41st president of the United States also got to hold the title of oldest-living president for less than a year.
George H.W. Bush lived until he was 94, surpassing Ford's mark in 2017.
He died less than a year later on Nov. 30, 2018.
Bill Clinton
After consecutive Republican presidents, Democrats took back the White House with Clinton's win in the 1992 election.
At the age of 46, he was the second-youngest person ever to be elected to the role of commander-in-chief.
Clinton's post-presidency timespan has reached 23 years, placing him sixth behind Carter, Hoover, Ford, Bush and John Adams (who lived 25 years after serving as the second president).
George W. Bush
Bush, the son of George H.W. Bush, served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 through 2009.
His 15 years post presidency is closer to the average timespan out of office for past presidents, but he remains one of just five who are still alive (Carter, Clinton, Obama and Trump).
Barack Obama
The first African-American president in U.S. history was elected as the 44th president of the United States in 2008 after defeating Republican nominee John McCain.
Born August 4, 1961, Obama is currently the youngest living U.S. president at the age of 63.
Donald Trump
At age 78, the businessman who served at the 45th president of the United States has the most time overlapped with Carter of any non-active U.S. leader.
Joe Biden
At 81 years old, Biden currently holds the distinction of most time overlapped with Carter.
The 46th president of the United States was born on Nov. 20, 1942, a little more than 18 years after Carter.