Former US President Jimmy Carter turned 100 on Tuesday, marking the first time an American leader has lived a full century. 

Celebrations were planned in his native Plains, Georgia, where he has been living in home hospice care for the last 19 months.

In August, his grandson Jason Carter told local media that the ex-president had said he was "only trying to make it to vote for Kamala Harris," the Democratic candidate.

Early voting for the US federal election opens in Georgia on October 15.

Peanut farmer-turned-president

Carter was the first US president to be born in a hospital, on October 1, 1924, to a nurse and an owner of a general store. After a childhood marked by the Great Depression, he attended the Naval Academy and fell in love with his sister's friend Rosalynn Smith.

The Carters married in 1946 and were together for 77 years, until Rosalynn died in November 2023 at the age of 96.

Carter was relatively unknown outside of Georgia when he secured the Democratic nomination, and later the presidency, in 1976. He promoted moderately progressive policies during his single term, which was also marred by economic malaise and the Iran hostage crisis in 1980, the year he lost his second presidential run to Ronald Reagan.

Carter became best known for defining the concept of the "post-presidency." Alongside his wife, he worked to promote humanitarian causes around the world and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

Unexpected celebration

A church celebration and a concert were planned in Plains to mark the occasion.

Jason Carter said that the centennial birthday was not something the family had expected to see once his grandmother died, but that "these last few months, especially, he has gotten a lot more engaged in world events, a lot more engaged in politics, a lot more, just engaged, emotionally, with all of us."

"Not everybody gets 100 years on this earth, and when somebody does, and when they use that time to do so much good for so many people, it's worth celebrating," added the younger Carter, who is chairman of the Carter Center, the human rights organization set up by his grandparents.

es/nm (AP, AFP)