Gerald Ford was born Leslie Lynch King Jr. in 1913. When he was a baby, his mom remarried a man named Gerald Ford Sr., and he renamed the child. Before getting his law degree from Yale, he was a star football player, and he eventually joined the Navy to fight in World War II.
He married Betty Ford in 1948, and together the two of them had four children. Ford served as a member of Congress for 25 years before moving on in politics. While Nixon was in office, he had Spiro Agnew as his vice president. However, Agnew was forced to resign in 1973, and Nixon put Ford into office in his place. But when Nixon was also forced to resign in 1974 amid the Watergate scandal, Ford became president of the United States.
Ford served as president for just one term. One of his most memorable acts was pardoning Nixon for Watergate, which didn't go over well with the general public. He struggled to help the economy while in office, which resulted in a scary nine percent unemployment rate. All of this combined led to him not winning re-election in 1976.
After leaving the White House, Ford lived a pretty quiet life in retirement with his wife. He died in 2006 and was buried in Grand Rapids, MI.
