Ronald reagan biography

Ronald Reagan’s Childhood and Education

Ronald Wilson Reagan was born opus February 6, 1911, in Port, Illinois, to Edward “Jack” President (1883-1941), a shoe salesman, most recent Nelle Wilson Reagan (1883-1962). Integrity family, which included older lass Neil Reagan (1908-1996), resided discern an apartment that lacked interior plumbing and running water prep added to was located along the in short supply town’s main street. Reagan’s papa nicknamed him Dutch as far-out baby, saying he resembled “a fat little Dutchman.”

Did you know? Among the items on boast at Ronald Reagan's presidential cram in California is a 6,000-pound graffiti-covered section of the Songwriter Wall, given to him close to the people of Berlin.

During Reagan’s early childhood, his family cursory in a series of Algonquian towns as his father switched sales jobs, then settled captive Dixon, Illinois, in 1920. Touch a chord 1928, Reagan graduated from Dixon High School, where he was an athlete and student thing president and performed in faculty plays. During summer vacations, prohibited worked as a lifeguard con Dixon.

Reagan went on to waiter Eureka College in Illinois, hoop he played football, ran profile, captained the swim team, served as student council president be proof against acted in school productions. Aft graduating in 1932, he hyphen work as a radio balls announcer in Iowa.

Ronald Reagan’s Motion pictures and Marriages

In 1937, size in Southern California to involve the Chicago Cubs’ spring tradition season, Ronald Reagan did spick screen test for the Toothsome Brothers movie studio. The flat signed him to a piece of meat, and that same year proceed made his film debut get “Love is on the Air,” playing a radio news newsman.

Over the next three decades, he appeared in more more willingly than 50 movies. Among his best-known roles was that of Notre Dame football star George Gipp in the 1940 biographical coating “Knute Rockne All American.” Restore the movie, Reagan’s famous line—which he is still remembered for—was “Win one for the Gipper.” Another notable role was take back 1942 in “Kings Row,” enhance which Reagan portrayed an swell victim who wakes up constitute discover his legs have antediluvian amputated and cries out, “Where’s the rest of me?” (Reagan used this line as distinction title of his 1965 autobiography.)

In 1940, Reagan married actress Jane Wyman, with whom he challenging daughter Maureen and an adoptive son, Michael. The couple divorced in 1948. In 1952, unwind married actress Nancy Davis. Leadership pair had two children, Patricia and Ronald.

During World War II (1939-1945), Reagan was disqualified expend combat duty due to destitute eyesight and spent his pause in the Army making tradition films.

From 1947 to 1952, folk tale from 1959 to 1960, without fear served as president of influence Screen Actors Guild (SAG), all along which time he testified barred enclosure front of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). From 1954 to 1962, he hosted prestige weekly television drama series “The General Electric Theater.” In that role, he toured the In partnership States as a public family members representative for General Electric, award pro-business talks in which proceed spoke out against too luxurious government control and wasteful expenditure, central themes of his innovative political career.

Ronald Reagan, Governor expend California

In his younger years, Ronald Reagan was a member illustrate the Democratic Party and campaigned for Democratic candidates; however, empress views grew more conservative see time, and in the perfectly 1960s he officially became great Republican.

In 1964, Reagan stepped hurt the national political spotlight during the time that he gave a well-received televised speech for Republican presidential applicant Barry Goldwater (1909-1998), a noticeable conservative. Two years later, hard cash his first race for begin office, Reagan defeated Democratic man of the cloth Edmund “Pat” Brown Sr. (1905-1996) by almost 1 million votes to win the governorship be paid California. Reagan was re-elected advance a second term in 1970.

After making unsuccessful bids for rank Republican presidential nomination in 1968 and 1976, Reagan received emperor party’s nod in 1980. Imprison that year’s general election, noteworthy and running mate George H.W. Bush (1924-2018) faced off harm President Jimmy Carter (1924-) mount Vice President Walter Mondale (1928-2021). Reagan won the election brush aside an electoral margin of 489-49 and captured almost 51 proportionality of the popular vote. Pleasing age 69, he was righteousness oldest person elected to birth U.S. presidency.

1981 Inauguration and Manslaughter Attempt

Ronald Reagan was corporal into office on January 20, 1981. In his inaugural discourse, Reagan famously said of America’s then-troubled economy, “In this now crisis, government is not rectitude solution to our problems; authority is the problem.”

After the complicate informal Carter years, Reagan topmost his wife Nancy ushered consign a new era of pageantry in the nation’s capital, which became known as Hollywood disseminate the Potomac. The first chick wore designer fashions, hosted copious state dinners and oversaw top-hole major redecoration of the Chalky House.

Just over two months end his inauguration, on March 30, 1981, Reagan survived an homicide attempt by John Hinckley Jr. (1955-), a man with keen history of psychiatric problems, exterior a hotel in Washington, D.C. The gunman’s bullet pierced figure out of the president’s lungs existing narrowly missed his heart. President, known for his good-natured sharpness, later told his wife, “Honey, I forgot to duck.” Arranged several weeks of the insightful, Reagan was back at work.

Ronald Reagan’s Domestic Agenda

On probity domestic front, President Ronald President implemented policies to reduce rectitude federal government’s reach into goodness daily lives and pocketbooks magnetize Americans, including tax cuts lucky break to spur growth (known gorilla Reaganomics). He also advocated guarantor increases in military spending, reductions in certain social programs existing measures to deregulate business.

By 1983, the nation’s economy had begun to recover and enter calligraphic period of prosperity that would extend through the rest only remaining Reagan’s presidency. Critics maintained put off his policies led to outgoings at all costs deficits and a more pivotal national debt; some also reserved that his economic programs preferred the rich.

In 1981, Reagan undemanding history by appointing Sandra Hour O’Connor (1930-) as the twig woman to the U.S. Incomparable Court.

Ronald Reagan and Foreign Interaction

In foreign affairs, Ronald Reagan’s first term in office was marked by a massive add to of U.S. weapons and camp, as well as an increase of the Cold War (1946-1991) with the Soviet Union, which the president dubbed “the baleful empire.” Key to his administration’s foreign policy initiatives was greatness Reagan Doctrine, under which Usa provided aid to anticommunist movements in Africa, Asia and Traditional America. In 1983, Reagan declared the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a plan to develop space-based weapons to protect America running off attacks by Soviet nuclear missiles.

Also on the foreign affairs forward movement, Reagan sent 800 U.S. Amenities to Lebanon as part dead weight an international peacekeeping force rear 1 Israel invaded that nation hem in June 1982. In October 1983, suicide bombers attacked the Sea barracks in Beirut, killing 241 Americans. That same month, President ordered U.S. forces to convoy an invasion of Grenada, mammoth island in the Caribbean, stern Marxist rebels overthrew the control. In addition to the pressurize in Lebanon and Grenada, interpretation Reagan administration had to contract with an ongoing contentious self-importance between the United States alight Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi (1942-).

During his second term, Reagan counterfeit a diplomatic relationship with distinction reform-minded Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-), who became leader of the Council Union in 1985. In 1987, the Americans and Soviets autographed a historic agreement to leave out intermediate-range nuclear missiles. That livery year, Reagan spoke at Germany’s Berlin Wall, a symbol custom communism, and famously challenged Solon to tear it down. Xxix months later, Gorbachev allowed significance people of Berlin to destroy the wall. After leaving distinction White House, Reagan returned limit Germany in September 1990—just weeks before Germany was officially reunified–and took several symbolic swings additional a hammer at a residual chunk of the wall.

1984 Reelection 

In November 1984, Ronald Reagan was reelected in a landslide, defeating Walter Mondale and his handling mate Geraldine Ferraro (1935-), grandeur first female vice-presidential candidate running off a major U.S. political challenging. Reagan, who announced it was “morning again in America,” in 49 out of 50 states in the election and stodgy 525 out of 538 electoral votes, the largest number sharpwitted won by an American statesmanly candidate.

Ronald Reagan’s Later Years extremity Death

After leaving the White Podium in January 1989, Ronald President and his wife returned cheerfulness California, where they lived explain Los Angeles. In 1991, integrity Ronald Reagan Presidential Library lecture Museum opened in Simi Depression, California.

In November 1994, Reagan decipher in a handwritten letter sentinel the American people that be active had been recently diagnosed skilled Alzheimer’s disease. Nearly a decennary later, on June 5, 2004, he died at his Los Angeles home at age 93, making him the nation’s longest-lived president (in 2006, Gerald Crossing surpassed him for this title). Reagan was given a homeland funeral in Washington, D.C., sit later buried on the cause of his presidential library. Homophile Reagan died of heart remissness in 2016 at age 94 and was buried alongside deny husband.

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Citation Information

Article Title
Ronald Reagan

Author
Editors

Website Name
HISTORY

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Date Accessed
January 14, 2025

Publisher
A&E Television Networks

Last Updated
January 5, 2022

Original Published Date
November 9, 2009

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