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Essential Question
• What were the important events of the Carter
presidency?
Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter• Grew up in Plains, GA
• Studied nuclear physics in the Navy – trained to command nuclear subs
• Upon his father’s death, he resigned from the Navy and returned to Plains to run the family peanut business
Jimmy Carter• Served two terms in
the Georgia Senate
• 1970 – elected as governor of GA
• Ran as a Washington outsider for president
1976 Election
• Republican - Gerald Ford/Robert Dole
• Democrat – Jimmy Carter/Walter Mondale
• Victory for Carter
1976 Election
1970s Economy
• Downturn in the U.S. economy
• Dependent on imported oil from OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries)
Yom Kippur War
• Egypt and Syria invaded Israel
• Israel won after receiving supplies from an emergency American airlift
• Arab countries resented US actions
Arab Oil Embargo
• Long lines at US pumps
• Oil became a political weapon
• Prices per barrel of oil rose dramatically
U.S. Response
• National speed limit of 55 mph
• Fuel efficient cars (many foreign made)
• Economic inflation
Nuclear Energy
• Controversy over building nuclear reactors to generate power
• Environmentalists cautioned against nuclear meltdowns
Three Mile Island
• March 1979
• Near meltdown before plant closed
• Win for the environmentalists
Carter’s Challenges
• Turmoil in the Middle East raised gas prices
• Inflation rate of 11 percent
Carter’s Challenges
• Favored human rights and peacemaking in foreign affairs
Camp David Accords
• 1978
• Israel’s Menachem Begin met with Egypt’s Anwar Sadat at Camp David
• Signed a peace accord
USSR• 1979 – Soviet Union
invaded Afghanistan
• Carter placed an embargo on wheat shipments to the USSR
• Boycott of the Summer Olympics (1984) in Moscow
Iran
• 1979 – Shah of Iran forced into exile as an ally of the U.S.
• Ayatollah Khomeini came to power
• U.S. admitted the Shah into the country for cancer treatments
Iran• In response, Iranian
students seized the U.S. embassy in Teheran
• 66 Americans became hostages
• U.S. refused to return the Shah to Iran for trial
Iranian Hostage Crisis
• Hostages remained for fourteen months
• April 1980 rescue effort failed
• After the Shah’s death, Iranians agreed to release the hostages – on the day Carter left office
Election of 1980
• Republican – Ronald Reagan
• Democrat – Jimmy Carter
• Reagan victory