Gerald Ford in the context of "Jimmy Carter"

Jimmy Carter's tenure as the 39th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 1977, and ended on January 20, 1981. Carter, a Democrat from Georgia, took office following his narrow victory over Republican incumbent president Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential election. His presidency ended following his landslide defeat in the 1980 presidential election to Republican Ronald Reagan, after one term in office. At the time of his death at the age of 100, he was the oldest living, longest-lived and longest-married president, and has the longest post-presidency.

Carter took office during a period of "stagflation", as the economy experienced a combination of high inflation and slow economic growth. His budgetary policies centered on taming inflation by reducing deficits and government spending. Responding to energy concerns that had persisted through much of the 1970s, his administration enacted a national energy policy designed for long-term energy conservation and the development of alternative resources. In the short term, the country was beset by an energy crisis in 1979 which was overlapped by a recession in 1980. Carter sought reforms to the country's welfare, health care, and tax systems, but was largely unsuccessful, partly due to poor relations with Democrats in Congress.

Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. A member of the Republican Party, he became an important figure in the American conservative movement. The period encompassing his presidency is known as the Reagan era.

Born in Tampico, Illinois, Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932 and was hired the next year as a sports broadcaster in Iowa. In 1937, he moved to California where he became a well-known film actor. During his acting career, Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild twice from 1947 to 1952 and from 1959 to 1960. In the 1950s, he hosted General Electric Theater and worked as a motivational speaker for General Electric. During the 1964 presidential election, Reagan's "A Time for Choosing" speech launched his rise as a leading conservative figure. After being elected governor of California in 1966, he raised state taxes, turned the state budget deficit into a surplus and implemented crackdowns on university protests. Following his loss to Gerald Ford in the 1976 Republican Party presidential primaries, Reagan won the Republican Party's nomination and then obtained a landslide victory over President Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election.

The 1980 presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan was a successful election campaign for President of the United States in 1980 by former California governor Ronald Reagan, and former CIA director George H. W. Bush. Reagan and Bush, defeated incumbent President Jimmy Carter and incumbent Vice President Walter Mondale. Reagan, a Republican who had also tried to seek the Republican nomination in 1976, launched his 1980 presidential bid on November 13, 1979, and secured nomination for his election on July 17, 1980. On November 4th, 1980, Reagan and Bush defeated Carter and Mondale in an electoral college landslide, winning 489 electoral votes compared to Carter and Mondale’s 49 electoral votes.

Reagan, a Republican and former governor of California, announced his third presidential bid in a nationally televised speech from New York City in 1979. He campaigned extensively for the primaries after losing the Iowa caucus to former congressman and director of the Central Intelligence Agency Bush. In the primaries, he won 44 states and 59.8 percent of the vote. He decided initially to nominate former president Gerald Ford as his running mate, but Ford wanted such extended powers as vice president, especially over foreign policy, that their ticket would effectively amount to a "co-presidency". As a result, negotiations to form a Reagan–Ford ticket ceased. Reagan then selected Bush as his vice-presidential running mate.

George Herbert Walker Bush (June 12, 1924 – November 30, 2018) was the 41st president of the United States, serving from 1989 to 1993. A member of the Republican Party, he also served as the 43rd vice president under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1989 and previously in various other federal positions.

Born into a wealthy, established family in Milton, Massachusetts, Bush was raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. He attended Phillips Academy and served as a pilot in the United States Navy Reserve during World War II before graduating from Yale and moving to West Texas, where he established oil company Zapata Corporation. Following an unsuccessful run for the United States Senate in 1964, he was elected to represent Texas's 7th congressional district in 1966. President Richard Nixon appointed Bush as the ambassador to the United Nations in 1971 and as chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1973. President Gerald Ford appointed him as the chief of the Liaison Office to the People's Republic of China in 1974 and as the director of central intelligence in 1976. Bush ran for president in 1980 but was defeated in the Republican presidential primaries by Reagan, who then selected Bush as his vice presidential running mate. In the 1988 presidential election, Bush defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis.

The Helsinki Final Act, also known as Helsinki Accords or Helsinki Declaration, was the document signed at the closing meeting of the third phase of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) held in Helsinki, Finland, between 30 July and 1 August 1975, following two years of negotiations known as the Helsinki Process. All then-existing European countries except Andorra and Hoxhaist Albania, as well as the United States and Canada (altogether 35 participating states), signed the Final Act in an attempt to improve the détente between the East and the West. The Helsinki Accords, however, were not binding as they did not have treaty status that would have to be ratified by parliaments. Sometimes the term "Helsinki pact(s)" was also used unofficially.

A pistol is a type of handgun, characterized by a barrel with an integral chamber. The word "pistol" derives from the Middle French pistolet (c. 1550), meaning a small gun or knife, and first appeared in the English language c. 1570 when early handguns were produced in Europe. In colloquial usage, the word "pistol" is often used as a generic term to describe any type of handgun, inclusive of revolvers (which have a single barrel and a separate cylinder housing multiple chambers) and the pocket-sized derringers (which are often multi-barrelled).

The most common type of pistol used in the contemporary era is the semi-automatic pistol. The older single-shot and lever-action pistols are now rarely seen and used primarily for nostalgic hunting and historical reenactment. Fully-automatic machine pistols are uncommon in civilian usage because of their generally poor recoil-controllability (due to the lack of a buttstock) and strict laws and regulations governing their manufacture and sale (where they are regarded as submachine gun equivalents).

A lectern is a standing reading desk with a slanted top, on which documents or books are placed as support for reading aloud, as in a scripture reading, lecture, or sermon. A lectern is usually attached to a stand or affixed to some other form of support. To facilitate eye contact and improve posture when facing an audience, lecterns may have adjustable height and slant. People reading from a lectern, called lectors, generally do so while standing.

The word has its origins in the medieval Latin term lectrum, related to legere which means 'to read'. In pre-modern usage, the word lectern was used to refer specifically to the "reading desk or stand ... from which the Scripture lessons (lectiones) ... are chanted or read." One 1905 dictionary states that "the term is properly applied only to the class mentioned [church book stands] as independent of the pulpit." By the 1920s, however, the term was being used in a broader sense; for example, in reference to a memorial service in Carnegie Hall, it was stated that "the lectern from which the speakers talked was enveloped in black." Lecterns are frequently also referred to as podiums, a word which can also refer to an elevated platform upon which a lectern is placed, derived from the Latin root pod-, meaning 'feet'.

Nelson Aldrich "Rocky" Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 – January 26, 1979) was the 41st vice president of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford. A member of the Republican Party and the wealthy Rockefeller family, he was the 49th governor of New York from 1959 to 1973. He was the leader of the moderate faction of his party, known as the Rockefeller Republicans.

Rockefeller was born on Bar Harbor, Maine. After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1930, Rockefeller worked at various businesses connected to his family. He served as assistant secretary of State for American Republic Affairs for Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman (1944–1945), and as Undersecretary of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) under Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1954. He was first elected governor of New York in 1958, and was re-elected in 1962, 1966, and 1970. As governor of New York, Rockefeller's achievements included the expansion of the State University of New York (SUNY), efforts to protect the environment, the construction of the Empire State Plaza in Albany, increased facilities and personnel for medical care, and the creation of the New York State Council on the Arts. Rockefeller was often considered to be liberal, progressive, or moderate. In an agreement that was termed the Treaty of Fifth Avenue, he persuaded Richard Nixon to alter the Republican Party platform just before the 1960 Republican National Convention.

Henry Alfred Kissinger (May 27, 1923 – November 29, 2023) was an American diplomat and political scientist who served as the 56th United States secretary of state from 1973 to 1977 and the 7th national security advisor from 1969 to 1975, serving under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

Born in Germany, Kissinger emigrated to the United States in 1938 as a Jewish refugee fleeing Nazi persecution. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II. After the war, he attended Harvard University, where he excelled academically. He later became a professor of government at the university and earned an international reputation as an expert on nuclear weapons and foreign policy. He acted as a consultant to government agencies, think tanks, and the presidential campaigns of Nelson Rockefeller and Nixon before being appointed as national security advisor and later secretary of state by President Nixon.

Richard Nixon's tenure as the 37th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1969, and ended when he resigned on August 9, 1974, in the face of almost certain impeachment and removal from office, the only U.S. president ever to do so. He was succeeded by Gerald Ford, whom he had appointed vice president after Spiro Agnew became embroiled in a separate corruption scandal and was forced to resign. Nixon, a prominent member of the Republican Party from California who previously served as vice president for two terms under president Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1961, took office following his narrow victory over Democratic incumbent vice president Hubert Humphrey and American Independent Party nominee George Wallace in the 1968 presidential election. Four years later, in the 1972 presidential election, he defeated Democratic nominee George McGovern, to win re-election in a landslide. Although he had built his reputation as a very active Republican campaigner, Nixon downplayed partisanship in his 1972 landslide re-election.

Nixon's primary focus while in office was on foreign affairs. He focused on détente with the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union, easing Cold War tensions with both countries. As part of this policy, Nixon signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and SALT I, two landmark arms control treaties with the Soviet Union. Nixon promulgated the Nixon Doctrine, which called for indirect assistance by the United States rather than direct U.S. commitments as seen in the ongoing Vietnam War. After extensive negotiations with North Vietnam, Nixon withdrew the last U.S. soldiers from South Vietnam in 1973, ending the military draft that same year. To prevent the possibility of further U.S. intervention in Vietnam, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution over Nixon's veto.