How Long Was Ronald Reagan as President Oh I Did It Again
Ronald Reagan (1911-2004), a former thespian and California governor, served as the 40th president from 1981 to 1989. Raised in small-town Illinois, he became a Hollywood actor in his 20s and later served as the Republican governor of California from 1967 to 1975.
Dubbed the Great Communicator, the affable Reagan became a popular two-term president. He cut taxes, increased defence force spending, negotiated a nuclear arms reduction understanding with the Soviets and is credited with helping to bring a quicker end to the Cold War. Reagan, who survived a 1981 bump-off effort, died at historic period 93 after battling Alzheimer's disease.
Ronald Reagan's Childhood and Education
Ronald Wilson Reagan was born on February 6, 1911, in Tampico, Illinois, to Edward "Jack" Reagan (1883-1941), a shoe salesman, and Nelle Wilson Reagan (1883-1962). The family, which included older son Neil Reagan (1908-1996), resided in an apartment that lacked indoor plumbing and running water and was located forth the modest town'due south main street. Reagan's begetter nicknamed him Dutch every bit a infant, saying he resembled "a fat little Dutchman."
During Reagan's early childhood, his family lived in a series of Illinois towns as his father switched sales jobs, then settled in Dixon, Illinois, in 1920. In 1928, Reagan graduated from Dixon High Schoolhouse, where he was an athlete and student trunk president and performed in school plays. During summer vacations, he worked every bit a lifeguard in Dixon.
Reagan went on to attend Eureka College in Illinois, where he played football, ran track, captained the swim team, served as student council president and acted in school productions. After graduating in 1932, he found work as a radio sports journalist in Iowa.
Ronald Reagan'south Movies and Marriages
In 1937, while in Southern California to comprehend the Chicago Cubs' jump training season, Ronald Reagan did a screen test for the Warner Brothers movie studio. The studio signed him to a contract, and that same yr he made his film debut in "Love is on the Air," playing a radio news reporter.
Over the next three decades, he appeared in more than than 50 movies. Among his best-known roles was that of Notre Dame football star George Gipp in the 1940 biographical picture show "Knute Rockne All American." In the picture, Reagan's famous line—which he is still remembered for—was "Win one for the Gipper." Another notable role was in 1942 in "Kings Row," in which Reagan portrayed an accident victim who wakes upwards to discover his legs accept been amputated and cries out, "Where's the rest of me?" (Reagan used this line as the championship of his 1965 autobiography.)
In 1940, Reagan married actress Jane Wyman, with whom he had daughter Maureen and an adopted son, Michael. The couple divorced in 1948. In 1952, he married actress Nancy Davis. The pair had 2 children, Patricia and Ronald.
During Earth War 2 (1939-1945), Reagan was disqualified from combat duty due to poor eyesight and spent his fourth dimension in the Ground forces making training films.
From 1947 to 1952, and from 1959 to 1960, he served as president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), during which time he testified in forepart of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). From 1954 to 1962, he hosted the weekly television drama series "The General Electric Theater." In this function, he toured the The states as a public relations representative for General Electric, giving pro-concern talks in which he spoke out against too much regime control and wasteful spending, cardinal themes of his future political career.
Ronald Reagan, Governor of California
In his younger years, Ronald Reagan was a member of the Autonomous Political party and campaigned for Democratic candidates; however, his views grew more conservative over fourth dimension, and in the early on 1960s he officially became a Republican.
In 1964, Reagan stepped into the national political spotlight when he gave a well-received televised voice communication for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater (1909-1998), a prominent conservative. Two years later, in his first race for public role, Reagan defeated Democratic incumbent Edmund "Pat" Brownish Sr. (1905-1996) by almost ane million votes to win the governorship of California. Reagan was re-elected to a second term in 1970.
After making unsuccessful bids for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 and 1976, Reagan received his political party'southward nod in 1980. In that yr'south general election, he and running mate George H.W. Bush-league (1924-2018) faced off against President Jimmy Carter (1924-) and Vice President Walter Mondale (1928-2021). Reagan won the ballot past an electoral margin of 489-49 and captured almost 51 percent of the popular vote. At age 69, he was the oldest person elected to the U.Southward. presidency.
Curl to Go along
1981 Inauguration and Bump-off Attempt
Ronald Reagan was sworn into office on January 20, 1981. In his inaugural address, Reagan famously said of America'southward then-troubled economy, "In this present crisis, authorities is non the solution to our problems; authorities is the trouble."
Afterwards the more than informal Carter years, Reagan and his wife Nancy ushered in a new era of glamour in the nation's capital, which became known as Hollywood on the Potomac. The kickoff lady wore designer fashions, hosted numerous state dinners and oversaw a major redecoration of the White House.
But over two months subsequently his inauguration, on March xxx, 1981, Reagan survived an assassination try past John Hinckley Jr. (1955-), a human with a history of psychiatric problems, outside a hotel in Washington, D.C. The gunman's bullet pierced one of the president's lungs and narrowly missed his heart. Reagan, known for his good-natured humor, later told his wife, "Dearest, I forgot to duck." Within several weeks of the shooting, Reagan was back at work.
Ronald Reagan's Domestic Agenda
On the domestic front, President Ronald Reagan implemented policies to reduce the federal government'due south reach into the daily lives and pocketbooks of Americans, including revenue enhancement cuts intended to spur growth (known as Reaganomics). He also advocated for increases in armed services spending, reductions in certain social programs and measures to deregulate business.
By 1983, the nation'due south economy had started to recover and enter a period of prosperity that would extend through the balance of Reagan'southward presidency. Critics maintained that his policies led to upkeep deficits and a more significant national debt; some also held that his economic programs favored the rich.
In 1981, Reagan made history past appointing Sandra Day O'Connor (1930-) as the first adult female to the U.South. Supreme Courtroom.
Ronald Reagan and Foreign Affairs
In foreign affairs, Ronald Reagan'due south showtime term in office was marked past a massive buildup of U.South. weapons and troops, every bit well as an escalation of the Cold War (1946-1991) with the Soviet Union, which the president dubbed "the evil empire." Central to his administration's foreign policy initiatives was the Reagan Doctrine, under which America provided help to anticommunist movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In 1983, Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a plan to develop infinite-based weapons to protect America from attacks by Soviet nuclear missiles.
Too on the foreign affairs front end, Reagan sent 800 U.S. Marines to Lebanon equally part of an international peacekeeping force later Israel invaded that nation in June 1982. In October 1983, suicide bombers attacked the Marine billet in Beirut, killing 241 Americans. That same month, Reagan ordered U.South. forces to atomic number 82 an invasion of Grenada, an island in the Caribbean, after Marxist rebels overthrew the authorities. In addition to the bug in Lebanon and Grenada, the Reagan administration had to deal with an ongoing contentious human relationship between the United States and Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi (1942-).
During his 2nd term, Reagan forged a diplomatic relationship with the reform-minded Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-), who became leader of the Soviet Union in 1985. In 1987, the Americans and Soviets signed a historic agreement to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear missiles. That same year, Reagan spoke at Deutschland'due south Berlin Wall, a symbol of communism, and famously challenged Gorbachev to tear it down. Twenty-nine months afterward, Gorbachev allowed the people of Berlin to dismantle the wall. Later leaving the White House, Reagan returned to Germany in September 1990—just weeks earlier Germany was officially reunified–and took several symbolic swings with a hammer at a remaining chunk of the wall.
1984 Reelection
In November 1984, Ronald Reagan was reelected in a landslide, defeating Walter Mondale and his running mate Geraldine Ferraro (1935-), the first female vice-presidential candidate from a major U.S. political party. Reagan, who announced it was "forenoon again in America," carried 49 out of fifty states in the election and received 525 out of 538 electoral votes, the largest number ever won by an American presidential candidate.
Ronald Reagan's Subsequently Years and Death
After leaving the White House in January 1989, Ronald Reagan and his wife returned to California, where they lived in Los Angeles. In 1991, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum opened in Simi Valley, California.
In November 1994, Reagan revealed in a handwritten letter to the American people that he had been recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Nearly a decade afterwards, 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 Ford surpassed him for this championship). Reagan was given a land funeral in Washington, D.C., and later buried on the grounds of his presidential library. Nancy Reagan died of eye failure in 2016 at historic period 94 and was buried alongside her married man.
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Source: https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/ronald-reagan