President Jimmy Carter has set another milestone with this birthday: He is the first former commander-in-chief to be a centenarian.
“Not everybody gets 100 years on this earth, and when somebody does, and when they use that time to do so much good for so many people, it's worth celebrating," Jason Carter, the former president's grandson and chair of The Carter Center governing board, said in an interview with The Associated Press
Carter was an early environmentalist who pushed to expand the national park system to include protection of 103 million acres of Alaskan lands. Despite how historians might remember the conflict in Iran, Carter continued the difficult negotiations over the hostages.Historian and journalist Jonathan Alter wrote the biography of Carter, “His Very Best," and tracked how the U.S. commander-in-chief worked to reset the balance between values and hard-nosed cynicism in foreign policy.
Working hand-in-hand with the World Health Organization, the Carter Center helped reduce the number of estimated global cases of Guinea worm disease from 3.5 million in 1986 toHe was also instrumental in founding the New Baptist Covenant and served as an honorary chair on the World Justice Project. He took over Hoover's mantle of longest-retired president. The record, previously 31 years and 230 days, is now at an outstanding 43 years and 255 days . Other than Hoover, nobody spent more than 30 years in retirement after serving as president.
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