Jimmy Carter at 100: A century of changes for a president, the US and the world since 1924

Already the longest-lived of the 45 men to serve as U.S. president, Jimmy Carter is about to reach the century mark.

The 39th president, who remains under home hospice care, will turn 100 on Tuesday, Oct. 1, celebrating in the same south Georgia town where he was born in 1924.

Here are some notable markers for Carter, the nation and the world over his long life.

Booms most everywhere — but not Plains

Carter has seen the U.S. population nearly triple. The U.S. has about 330 million residents; there were about 114 million in 1924 and 220 million when Carter was inaugurated in 1977. The global population has more than quadrupled, from 1.9 billion to more than 8.1 billion. It already had more than doubled to 4.36 billion by the time he became president.

That boom has not reached Plains, where Carter has lived more than 80 of his 100 years. His wife Rosalynn, who died in 2023 at age 96, also was born in Plains.

Their town comprised fewer than 500 people in the 1920s and has about 700 today; much of the local economy revolves around its most famous residents.

When James Earl Carter Jr. was born, life expectancy for American males was 58. It’s now 75.

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