RIP Gerald Ford

The former President has died at 93:

Former President Gerald Ford, who became president in 1974 after the resignation of Richard Nixon, died Tuesday at age 93.

Ford, the oldest surviving former U.S. president, died Tuesday, his wife, Betty Ford said. The former first lady's statement did not say where he died or give a cause of death.

"My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age," she said in a statement from Ford's office in Rancho Mirage. "His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country."

The nation's 38th president spent several days in the fall of 2006 at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage for medical tests. At the time of his release, on October 16, his chief of staff, Penny Circle, said he would "resume normal activities."

In August, he was discharged from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, after undergoing an angioplasty procedure to reduce or eliminate blockages in his coronary arteries. Doctors also implanted a pacemaker to improve his heart performance.

He is survived by his wife; three sons, Michael, Jack and Steven; and a daughter, Susan.

President Ford was the only President to ever hold the office never having been elected President or Vice President, being elevated in the wake of resignations in the Nixon administration following the Watergate scandal.