The Kent State shootings occurred at Kent State University in the city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of students by the National Guard on May 4, 1970. Over the course of four days, Kent State students protested against an American invasion of Cambodia which President Richard Nixon launched on April 25 and which Nixon announced in a television address on April 30. There were significant national consequences: hundreds of colleges closed throughout the US, and the event further divided the nation along political lines.

On June 17, 1972, Frank Wills, a security guard working at the office complex of the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., noticed a piece of tape on the door between the basement stairwell and the parking garage. It was holding the door unlocked, so Wills removed it, assuming the cleaning crew had put it there. Later, he returned and discovered that the tape had been replaced. Wills then contacted the D.C. police.

After the police arrived, five men — Bernard Barker, Virgilio González, Eugenio Martínez, James W. McCord, Jr. and Frank Sturgis — were discovered and arrested for breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. The men had broken into the same office three weeks earlier as well, and had returned to fix wiretaps that were not working and, according to some suggestions, photograph documents.

On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran and took approximately seventy Americans captive. This terrorist act triggered the most profound crisis of the Carter presidency and began a personal ordeal for Jimmy Carter and the American people that lasted 444 days.

President Carter committed himself to the safe return of the hostages while protecting America's interests and prestige. He pursued a policy of restraint that put a higher value on the lives of the hostages than on American retaliatory power or protecting his own political future.

The toll of patient diplomacy was great, but President Carter's actions brought freedom for the hostages with America's honor preserved.