Story Highlights
- Historical event
- 14 July 1913
- President Gerald Ford died at the age of 93 years. Known help centers for addicts were named after his wife Betty Ford.
On this day in 1913 Gerald Ford, the 38th President of the United States, was born.
He is particularly interesting for his longevity because he was the longest-lived of all previous United States presidents.
In fact, Ford died at the age of 93 years, being older than even Ronald Reagan (Reagan also died at the age of 93, but only 45 days short of Ford).
It is interesting that not one U.S. president was younger than 46, how old John F. Kennedy was at the time of the assassination. For comparison, Ford lived more than twice as long as Kennedy.
President Gerald Ford is also interesting for being the only person in the history of the United States to have served as both Vice President and President without being elected in the general election.
In fact, Ford was appointed Vice President by Richard Nixon, after the resignation of former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew (who was of Greek origin and who resigned due to a scandal).
Only eight months after Ford became Vice President, Nixon resigned because of the Watergate scandal. This made Ford the new president of the United States without him ever previously running for office, either as president or as vice president.
Ford remained in office till the end of Nixon’s mandate and then lived for nearly 30 years afterward. He died in 2007, aged 94. Known help centers for addicts were named after his wife Betty Ford.
The whole new class of U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carriers was named after President Ford (built to replace the existing Nimitz-class carriers and was named after Ford since the first ship of the class is USS Gerald R. Ford).
