Video: 'Gerald Ford Biography: U.S. President and Congressman'

(Monday, July 14, 1913, 12:43 a.m. CST) — Gerald Ford, the 38th President of the United States (1974-1977) and the 40th Vice President of the United States (1973-1974), was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr., today at 3202 Woolworth Avenue in Omaha, Nebraska, where his parents lived with his paternal grandparents.

King’s parents were divorced and he was later named Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. after his stepfather.

Ford previously served as the leader of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives from 1965 to 1973, when he was appointed the 40th vice president by President Richard Nixon, after the resignation of Spiro Agnew, under the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Ford succeeded to the presidency when Nixon resigned in 1974.

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Domestically, President Ford presided over the worst economy in the four decades since the Great Depression, with growing inflation and a recession during his tenure.

In one of his most controversial acts, he granted a presidential pardon to Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal.

During Ford’s presidency, foreign policy was characterized in procedural terms by the increased role Congress began to play, and by the corresponding curb on the powers of the president.

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As president, Ford signed the Helsinki Accords, which marked a move toward détente in the Cold War.

With the collapse of South Vietnam nine months into his presidency, U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War essentially ended.

In the 1976 Republican presidential primary campaign, Ford defeated former California Governor Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination, but narrowly lost the presidential election to the Democratic challenger, former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter.

Ford is the only person to become U.S. president without winning an election for president or vice president.