Jimmy Carter

39th President of the United States, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize

President of the United States Jimmy Carter pardons nearly all American Vietnam War draft evaders, some of whom had emigrated to Canada.

Development of the neutron bomb is canceled by President Jimmy Carter.

Convicted bank robber Patty Hearst is released from prison after her sentence is commuted by President Jimmy Carter.

Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter sign the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty in Washington, D.C..

US President Jimmy Carter signs the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.

U.S. President Jimmy Carter gives his so-called malaise speech, where he characterizes the greatest threat to the country as "this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation" but in which he never uses the word malaise.

U.S. President Jimmy Carter authorizes legislation giving $1.5 billion in loans to bail out the Chrysler Corporation.

US President Jimmy Carter announces a United States boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

U.S. President Jimmy Carter signs the Crude Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act in an effort to help the U.S. economy rebound.

An F3 tornado hits Kalamazoo County, Michigan. President Jimmy Carter declares it a federal disaster area.

The Iran hostage crisis, referred to within Iran as "Conquest of the American Spy Den", was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States. Sixty-six American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days (November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1981), after a group of Iranian students, belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, who were supporting the Iranian Revolution, took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. President Jimmy Carter called the hostages "victims of terrorism and anarchy," adding that "the United States will not yield to blackmail.” The crisis was described by the western media as an entanglement of "vengeance and mutual incomprehension.” In Iran, the hostage taking was widely seen as a blow against the United States and its influence in Iran, its perceived attempts to undermine the Iranian Revolution, and its longstanding support of the recently overthrown Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Following his overthrow in 1979, the Shah was admitted into the U.S. for medical treatment for cancer. The Iranians demanded that the Shah be returned to Iran for trial and execution for crimes he was accused of committing during his reign. Specifically, they accused the Shah of crimes against Iranian citizens with the help of his secret police, the SAVAK. Iranians saw the asylum granted by the U.S. as American complicity in the atrocities the Shah had committed. In the United States, the hostage-taking was seen as an egregious violation of the principles of international law which granted diplomats immunity from arrest and diplomatic compounds' inviolability. The hostage crisis reached a climax when, after failed attempts to negotiate a release of the hostages, the United States military attempted a rescue operation using ships such as the USS Nimitz and USS Coral Sea that were patrolling the waters near Iran. On April 24, 1980, Operation Eagle Claw resulted in a failed mission, the deaths of eight American servicemen, one Iranian civilian, and the destruction of two aircraft.