President Jimmy Carter 1977-1981 Thirty-Ninth President of the United States

From Where? Jimmy Carter, a former governor of Georgia, stressed his integrity, religious faith, and his standing as an outsider in the election of 1976. He won. He often said he was just a peanut farmer from a small town called Plains (Georgia) who wanted to serve his country.

U.S. Economy??? The United States was in a recession and President Carter increased federal spending and cut taxes. (Sound familiar?) This did not help and America suffered an energy crisis. America turned more to nuclear power and in March 1979, a major accident occurred at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Why? President Carter signed two treaties with Panama: 1.Turned control of the Panama Canal over to Panama in the year 2000, 2.Guaranteed the canal would remain a neutral waterway open to all shipping.

New Vocabulary Iran was one of the strongest U.S allies in the Persian Gulf region, an area vital to Western oil needs. Islamic fundamentalists overthrow the government and the new leader Ayatollah Khomeini did not like the U.S. because we had been friends with the previous government. In November 1979, Iranian students stormed the American embassy in Tehran and held Americans hostage.

America tried to negotiate but failed.