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 January 20: Inauguration Day. To everyone's surprise, the Carters get out of their limousine and walk down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.
January 21: Carter issues a pardon to most of those who evaded the draft in order to avoid going to Vietnam.
February 2: Wearing a cardigan sweater, Carter delivers his first national television address on energy policy.
March 5: "Ask President Carter," the first presidential phone-in radio broadcast, attracts over nine million callers.
 March 7-8: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin visits Washington. Questions about the Middle East will dominate Carter's news conference on March 9. Meetings with leaders from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia follow in the coming weeks.
March 30: Secretary of State Cyrus Vance presents an ambitious SALT II arms reduction proposal to Soviet leadership in Moscow, and is strongly rejected.
April: Carter pressures NATO allies to re-arm and demands a commitment of a 3% annual increase in their defense budgets.
 April 4: Carter and President Anwar el Sadat of Egypt meet for the first time.
May: In her role as the president's emissary to Latin America, Rosalynn travels to Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Peru, Ecuador, and Venezuela.
May 22: In a commencement address at Notre Dame, Carter signals the direction he plans to take in foreign policy, rejecting America's "inordinate fear of communism" and calling for a serious commitment to human rights.
 June 30: President Carter stops the B-1 bomber program, angering defense conservatives.
July 19: Carter and newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin meet for the first time, in Washington.
August 4: A new, cabinet-level Department of Energy is established, headed by James Schlesinger.
September: Allan Bakke, a 37-year-old white man and former Marine, is denied admission to the medical school at University of California-Davis. He sues, charging that less qualified black students have been accepted. The first major challenge to affirmative action policies, the case goes all the way to the Supreme Court.
 September 7: Carter and Panamanian president Omar Torrijos Herrera sign the Panama Canal treaties. They provide for control of the canal to be handed over to Panama in 1999, and guarantee the canal's neutrality.
September 15: Carter's budget director, friend and adviser Bert Lance appears before a Senate committee to defend himself against charges that he has improperly used his position for personal gain. Since July, the Lance scandal has grown into a major headache for Carter, as it calls into question the high moral integrity he campaigned on. Lance will resign six days later.
October 1: National security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski convinces Carter to reconvene the Geneva talks on the Middle East as a way to improve U.S.-Soviet relations. The move alarms the leaders of Egypt and Jordan and angers many in the American Jewish community.
October 5: Carter signs the International Covenant on Human Rights.
October 13: In a press conference Carter attacks oil companies for perpetrating "the biggest rip-off in history."
 November 15: The Shah of Iran visits the White House, prompting demonstrations by anti-Shah forces.
November 19: Egyptian president Anwar Sadat makes an historic visit to Israel, where he addresses the Israeli parliament, creating a major opportunity for peace in the Middle East.
December: Carter signs a Social Security measure that would keep the system solvent until 2030, resulting in a huge increase in payroll taxes.
December 27: Begin visits Cairo, laying the groundwork for further progress toward peace between Egypt and Israel.
December 31: Carter visits Tehran on New Years' Eve. He toasts the Shah, reiterating American support and calling him "an island of stability" in the troubled region.
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September 4: The 
December 15: The Carter administration announces that it will normalize relations with the People's Republic of China, completing a process begun by the 
January 29: Chinese premier Deng Xiaoping arrives in the U.S., where he is warmly received. President Carter warns him against a move into Vietnam, but the Chinese will invade less than a month later.
March 28: A 
November 4: Outraged by the Shah's welcome in America, militant students overrun the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seizing 66 hostages. The 444-day 
January 3: In response to the Soviets' Afghanistan invasion, Carter asks the Senate to table the SALT II Treaty and recalls Ambassador Thomas Watson from Moscow. 
October 28: The one and only debate between Carter and Reagan takes place in Cleveland. Reagan effectively brushes aside Carter's attacks by saying, "There you go again," and seals his dominance of the evening with his closing question to voters: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"