Jimmy Carter, 39th president of the United States, dead at 100

Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States and a former peanut farmer whose vision of a "competent and compassionate" government propelled him into the White House, died on Sunday, according to local media. He was 100.

The Carter family had a history of cancer and the former president lost his father, brother, and two sisters to pancreatic cancer. His mother had breast cancer, which later spread to her pancreas.

Jason Carter, Carter's grandson, had announced in May that he believed the former president was "coming to the end" of his life's journey. But the former president hung on much longer.

The soft-spoken leader with a signature Georgia drawl saw his single term in the Oval Office clouded by an economic downturn at home and a hostage crisis abroad.

His post-presidency life was marked by a very visible dedication to service, but also a series of sometimes controversial moves as he continued to wade into foreign affairs, particularly as it related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Carter met with the leadership of terrorist group and Palestinian representative Hamas in 2009 and 2015. He reprimanded Israel for its operations against Hamas in 2014, saying there was "no justification in the world for what Israel is doing."

Carter married Rosalynn Smith, a fellow native of Plains, in 1946, the same year he graduated from the Academy.

It wasn't long, however, before Carter again left the farm fields behind, this time beginning a career in politics that would land him the nation's highest office in just 14 years.

Carter won election to the Georgia Senate in 1962 and, following a failed gubernatorial bid in 1966, he became the state's governor in 1971.

While in the White House, Carter established full diplomatic relations with China and led negotiation of a nuclear limitation treaty with the Soviet Union. Domestically, he led several conservation efforts, showing the same love of nature as president as he did as a young farmer in Plains.

He has cited the Panama Canal treaties and the Camp David accords that brought peace between Egypt and Israel as among his greatest personal accomplishments.

"We focused on peace," he told The Washington Post in 2014. "We never shot a bullet or dropped a bomb on anyone."

The domestic and foreign issues led Sen. Ted Kennedy to take the rare step of challenging Carter for the Democratic presidential nomination. Though Carter survived that battle, though barely, he wasn't as fortunate in November 1980, when Reagan won 44 states and the presidency.

"This beautiful place on Earth that has set moral and ethical standards that exemplify what a superpower like America ought to be," Carter said of the center in October.

Carter also served as a member of The Elders, a group of independent global leaders no longer in politics  whose ranks at one time included South Africa President Nelson Mandela, Ireland President Mary Robinson and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

In his spare time, Carter, a deeply religious man who served as a deacon in the Maranatha Baptist Church of Plains, enjoyed fishing, running and woodworking.

Carter is survived by his four children, his 12 grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren.