Jimmy Carter was celebrated Thursday for his personal humility and public service before, during and after his presidency in a funeral at Washington National Cathedral featuring the kind of pageantry the 39th U.

Reagan's greatest conflict was not with Iran, but the Soviet Union -- and he handled it much differently than Carter handled the hostage crisis. In 1977, Richard Allen -- who would later become Reagan's first national security adviser -- was thinking of running for governor of New Jersey. So, he traveled to California to ask Reagan for his support.

At the time, many blamed Carter for not bringing the US hostages in Iran home. But one Marine says he saved his life.

Let’s imagine that Franklin D. Roosevelt had possessed the same gift for longevity as Jimmy Carter and lived until he was 100. He would have died in1982, in Ronald Reagan’s second year in office.

At first, Jimmy Carter was a political wizard. But he couldn’t keep the magic act going.

In 1994, Bill Clinton was in office in the midst of a standoff with North Korea over the communist country's nuclear program. The U.S. was floating the idea of sanctions – and even considered a preemptive strike on North Korea's nuclear facilities to destroy their capabilities.

One of the world’s most complex regions hosted the humble Southerner’s biggest triumph and most stinging defeat, as seen on front pages of The Washington Post.

President Jimmy Carter, the first politician to get me excited about politics, was a good man and a great man. His personal qualities, however, didn't translate into political success, and that was the job.

Thursday concluded six days of national rites that began in Plains, where Carter, a former Naval officer, engineer and peanut farmer, was born in 1924, lived most of his life and died after 22 months in hospice care.

Carter’s legacy shaped once he leftthe Oval Office Photograph by photographer Karl Schumacher, 1977.From the Presidential File Collection. Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division. Thomas Sellers,