Jimmy Carter was born October 1, 1924, in the small farming town of Plains, Georgia, and grew up in the nearby His father, James Earl Carter, Sr., was a farmer and businessman; his mother, Lillian Gordy, a registered nurse. He was educated in the Plains public schools, attended Georgia Southwestern College and the Georgia Institute of Technology, and received a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1946. On July 7, 1946, he married Rosalynn Smith. When his father died in 1953, he resigned a naval commission and returned to Plains. He became involved in the affairs of the community, serving as chairman of the county school board and the first president of the Georgia Planning Association. In 1962 he won election to the Georgia Senate. He lost his first gubernatorial campaign in 1966, but won the next election, becoming Georgias 76th governor on January 12, 1971. He was the Democratic National Committee campaign chairman for the 1974 congressional elections (Hochman html). After only serving one term as governor of Georgia he announced his candidacy for president of the United States on December 12, 1974. He won his partys nomination on the first ballot at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, and was elected the 39th president of the United States on November 2, 1976. During his presidency, Jimmy Carter made many important foreign policy accomplishments, including the Panama Canal treaties, the Diplomatic relations with China, and the Salt II treaty with the Soviet Union. Jimmy Carters first foreign policy accomplishment, and by the United States citizens, the most popular, were the Panama Canal treaties. After more than eighty years after the first official ocean-to-ocean transit of the Panama Canal, the United States and Panama embarked on a partnership for the management, operation and defense of the Panama Canal. Under two treaties signed in a ceremony at the OAS headquarters in Washington, D.C., o...
