Happy 73rd anniversary, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter

The Carters celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary on July 7, 2016. Here are images from their amazing life together.

1946: Ensign Jimmy Carter gets help with his epaulets from fiancee Rosalynn, at left, and his mother Miss Lillian, right, when graduating from the Naval Academy. Jimmy and Rosalynn began dating in 1945 and married one month after this photo.

1946: Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter pose on their wedding day. The couple, who had both attended Plains High School, met through a mutual friend when Jimmy Carter was serving in the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md.

Jimmy Carter's active naval service lasted from 1946-1953. During that time, they lived in Norfolk, Va., and John, James and Jeffrey were born. In 1953, they took over the family peanut business in Plains, Ga. Daughter Amy was born in 1967.

Carter became a Georgia state senator in 1963, an office he would hold until 1967. In 1966, he ran for governor but lost the Democratic primary election. The couple are seen here, in 1966, on that otherwise disappointing election night.

Four years later, Jimmy Carter would be elected governor in 1970, on his second try. Here, he celebrates on election night with Rosalynn and his mother Miss Lillian.

Gov. Jimmy Carter and Georgia's new First Lady Rosalynn Carter dance at the 1971 inaugural ball at the Regency Hotel in downtown Atlanta.

Georgia's First Couple travel through South America in 1972. Decades later the couple would put their wanderlust to good use through the Carter Center.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter greet the crowd during the Democratic National Convention at Madison Square Garden. They are joined by Walter Mondale and his wife Joan.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter are all smiles at Jimmy's 1977 Presidential Inauguration. At their side is the outgoing President Gerald Ford and his wife Betty.

Jimmy, Amy, and Rosalynn Carter walk down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House after the 1977 inauguration ceremony.

The nation's First Couple poses on the White House lawn with daughter Amy in 1977.

In 1980, the last year of his term, President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter attend Sunday School at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains.

In 1982, the Carters founded a nonprofit organization dedicated to "improve life for people in more than 80 countries." Here, they are seen in Indonesia in 1999, on a trip to observe elections.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter in their Plains home in 2002.

In 2007, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter wear traditional Ghanaian attire, a gift from the chief of Tingoli village in northern Ghana, during a field trip to assess Carter Center disease prevention work in Africa.

Former president Jimmy Carter gets a kiss from Rosalynn on his 85th birthday, in 2009, during the reopening of the Carter Presidential Museum after a major renovation. 

Rosalynn Carter gets emotional during a dedication ceremony and birthday celebration with staff and guests at the Day Chapel of the Ivan Allen III Pavilion at the Carter Center, in 2014.

President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter join in the Festival Dance on Main Street during the 18th Annual Plains Peanut Festival onSept. 27, 2014, in Plains.

Jimmy Carter, 89, and his wife Rosalynn, 86, hold hands as they leave the Maranatha Baptist Church following church services on Sunday, June 15, 2014, in Plains.

Jimmy Carter sneaks a kiss with Rosalynn while the couple works on a Habitat for Humanity build in Memphis in 2015.

Jimmy Carter kisses Rosalynn on the "Kiss Cam" during a baseball game between the Atlanta Braves and the Toronto Blue Jays in Atlanta in 2015. Carter had recently announced his cancer diagnosis.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter talk about their years together in his office at the Carter Center in Atlanta in June 2016. They celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary July 7, 2016.

By Nancy Clanton, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

This year has been quite the roller-coaster ride for Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter.

Up: In March, he earned the title of oldest living former president, passing George H.W. Bush.

Down: They each broke a hip, she in April; he in May, just three weeks later.

Up: In June, the former president was finally granted tenure at Emory Unversityafter teaching there 37 years.

And the exciting loop: Sunday, the Carters celebrate their 73rd wedding anniversary.

On July 7, 1946, Jimmy Carter, 21, and Rosalynn Smith, 18, got married at Plains Methodist Church, in their hometown.

Since then, they have lived in the Georgia Governor’s Mansion and the White House.

They founded the Carter Center in 1982, with a mission to advance peace and improve health worldwide.

In 1999, then-President Bill Clinton awarded Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter the Presidential Medal of Freedom. “Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter have done more good things for more people in more places than any other couple on the face of the Earth,” Clinton said when presenting the medal.

Jimmy Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development."

She has been an advocate for mental health for 48 years, "and I plan to make it to 50," the former first lady said last year during the annual Rosalynn Carter Georgia Mental Health Forum.

The couple built a family — sons Jack, James and Donnel; and daughter Amy. And they built hundreds of houses for needy families through their work with Habitat for Humanity.

In 2015, the Carters faced the real possibility they would observe no anniversaries starting with a seven.

Doctors had discovered cancer in the former president's liver and brain, he thought they might not reach that rare benchmark.

“We thought life was over for me. I think that having been together for 69 years obviously made it easier for us to weather that storm of emotions,” Jimmy Carter said in 2016.

Now, they mark 73 years together — 73 years of accomplishments that might not have happened if he were not persistent. As Jimmy Carter tells it, his first marriage proposal was rejected.

But she eventually said yes, and the rest, quite literally, is history.

This article was written by Nancy Clanton, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.