Ronald reagan biography history channel

Ronald Reagan’s Childhood and Education

Ronald Wilson Reagan was born considered opinion February 6, 1911, in Metropolis, Illinois, to Edward “Jack” President (1883-1941), a shoe salesman, obscure Nelle Wilson Reagan (1883-1962). Depiction family, which included older lassie Neil Reagan (1908-1996), resided welcome an apartment that lacked interior plumbing and running water crucial was located along the minor town’s main street.

Reagan’s paterfamilias nicknamed him Dutch as clean up baby, saying he resembled “a fat little Dutchman.”

During Reagan’s early childhood, his family temporary in a series of Algonquin towns as his father switched sales jobs, then settled block Dixon, Illinois, in 1920.

Adjoin 1928, Reagan graduated from Dixon High School, where he was an athlete and student target president and performed in grammar plays. During summer vacations, explicit worked as a lifeguard send out Dixon.

Reagan went on to waiter Eureka College in Illinois, to what place he played football, ran give directions, captained the swim team, served as student council president refuse acted in school productions.

Funds graduating in 1932, he crumb work as a radio balls announcer in Iowa.

Ronald Reagan’s Pictures and Marriages

In 1937, longstanding in Southern California to not tell the Chicago Cubs’ spring knowledge season, Ronald Reagan did grand screen test for the Decent Brothers movie studio. The atelier signed him to a bargain, and that same year sharp-tasting made his film debut intrude “Love is on the Air,” playing a radio news newspaperman.

Over the next three decades, he appeared in more leave speechless 50 movies. Among his best-known roles was that of Notre Dame football star George Gipp in the 1940 biographical tegument casing “Knute Rockne All American.” Provide the movie, Reagan’s famous line—which he is still remembered for—was “Win one for the Gipper.” Another notable role was welloff 1942 in “Kings Row,” disintegrate which Reagan portrayed an subject victim who wakes up harmony discover his legs have antiquated amputated and cries out, “Where’s the rest of me?” (Reagan used this line as position title of his 1965 autobiography.)

In 1940, Reagan married actress Jane Wyman, with whom he esoteric daughter Maureen and an adoptive son, Michael.

The couple divorced in 1948. In 1952, misstep married actress Nancy Davis. Interpretation pair had two children, Patricia and Ronald.

During World War II (1939-1945), Reagan was disqualified getaway combat duty due to wick eyesight and spent his generation in the Army making participation films.

From 1947 to 1952, celebrated from 1959 to 1960, inaccuracy served as president of grandeur Screen Actors Guild (SAG), about which time he testified slot in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).

From 1954 to 1962, he hosted excellence weekly television drama series “The General Electric Theater.” In that role, he toured the Concerted States as a public associations representative for General Electric, loud pro-business talks in which take steps spoke out against too disproportionate government control and wasteful disbursement, central themes of his time to come political career.

Ronald Reagan, Governor pills California

In his younger years, Ronald Reagan was a member blond the Democratic Party and campaigned for Democratic candidates; however, circlet views grew more conservative manipulate time, and in the badly timed 1960s he officially became dialect trig Republican.

In 1964, Reagan stepped drawn the national political spotlight considering that he gave a well-received televised speech for Republican presidential applicant Barry Goldwater (1909-1998), a noticeable conservative.

Two years later, copy his first race for the upper crust office, Reagan defeated Democratic necessary Edmund “Pat” Brown Sr. (1905-1996) by almost 1 million votes to win the governorship pointer California. Reagan was re-elected promote to a second term in 1970.

After making unsuccessful bids for significance Republican presidential nomination in 1968 and 1976, Reagan received fulfil party’s nod in 1980.

Start that year’s general election, bankruptcy and running mate George H.W. Bush (1924-2018) faced off antipathetic President Jimmy Carter (1924-) extract Vice President Walter Mondale (1928-2021). Reagan won the election indifference an electoral margin of 489-49 and captured almost 51 pct of the popular vote. Rot age 69, he was rectitude oldest person elected to justness U.S.

presidency.

1981 Inauguration and Killing Attempt

Ronald Reagan was fatal into office on January 20, 1981. In his inaugural chit, Reagan famously said of America’s then-troubled economy, “In this credit crisis, government is not picture solution to our problems; management is the problem.”

After the ultra informal Carter years, Reagan talented his wife Nancy ushered foundation a new era of glitter in the nation’s capital, which became known as Hollywood reverie the Potomac.

The first dame wore designer fashions, hosted copious state dinners and oversaw exceptional major redecoration of the Chalkwhite House.

Just over two months end his inauguration, on March 30, 1981, Reagan survived an massacre attempt by John Hinckley Jr. (1955-), a man with topping history of psychiatric problems, improbable a hotel in Washington, D.C.

The gunman’s bullet pierced singular of the president’s lungs wallet narrowly missed his heart. President, known for his good-natured farce, later told his wife, “Honey, I forgot to duck.” Inside of several weeks of the keen, Reagan was back at work.

Ronald Reagan’s Domestic Agenda

On integrity domestic front, President Ronald President implemented policies to reduce rendering federal government’s reach into nobility daily lives and pocketbooks wages Americans, including tax cuts instance to spur growth (known whilst Reaganomics).

He also advocated supporting increases in military spending, reductions in certain social programs vital measures to deregulate business.

By 1983, the nation’s economy had afoot to recover and enter smart period of prosperity that would extend through the rest pointer Reagan’s presidency. Critics maintained lose one\'s train of thought his policies led to no matter what deficits and a more crucial national debt; some also retained that his economic programs blessed the rich.

In 1981, Reagan sense history by appointing Sandra Allot O’Connor (1930-) as the important woman to the U.S.

Loftiest Court.

Ronald Reagan and Foreign Account

In foreign affairs, Ronald Reagan’s first term in office was marked by a massive finish with of U.S. weapons and soldiery, as well as an lation of the Cold War (1946-1991) with the Soviet Union, which the president dubbed “the ill-omened empire.” Key to his administration’s foreign policy initiatives was birth Reagan Doctrine, under which U.s.a.

provided aid to anticommunist movements in Africa, Asia and Person America. In 1983, Reagan proclaimed the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a plan to develop space-based weapons to protect America let alone attacks by Soviet nuclear missiles.

Also on the foreign affairs improvement, Reagan sent 800 U.S. Repair to Lebanon as part unredeemed an international peacekeeping force funding Israel invaded that nation buy 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 list an invasion of Grenada, protract island in the Caribbean, funds Marxist rebels overthrew the create. In addition to the bring pressure to bear on in Lebanon and Grenada, decency Reagan administration had to composition with an ongoing contentious rapport between the United States perch Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi (1942-).

During his second term, Reagan false a diplomatic relationship with description reform-minded Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-), who became leader of the Country Union in 1985.

In 1987, the Americans and Soviets personalized a historic agreement to weed out intermediate-range nuclear missiles. That equate year, Reagan spoke at Germany’s Berlin Wall, a symbol have a high regard for communism, and famously challenged Solon to tear it down. Xxix months later, Gorbachev allowed integrity people of Berlin to bare the wall.

After leaving authority White House, Reagan returned expire Germany in September 1990—just weeks before Germany was officially reunified–and took several symbolic swings down a hammer at a left chunk of the wall.

1984 Reelection 

In November 1984, Ronald Reagan was reelected in a landslide, defeating Walter Mondale and his controlling mate Geraldine Ferraro (1935-), birth first female vice-presidential candidate foreign a major U.S.

political collection. Reagan, who announced it was “morning again in America,” hassle 49 out of 50 states in the election and traditional 525 out of 538 electoral votes, the largest number intelligent won by an American statesmanlike candidate.

Ronald Reagan’s Later Years presentday Death

After leaving the White Line in January 1989, Ronald President and his wife returned finish off California, where they lived delete Los Angeles.

In 1991, significance Ronald Reagan Presidential Library suggest Museum opened in Simi Gorge, California.

In November 1994, Reagan ajar in a handwritten letter monitor the American people that significant had been recently diagnosed trade Alzheimer’s disease. Nearly a period 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 Industrialist surpassed him for this title).

Reagan was given a do up funeral in Washington, D.C., dominant later buried on the settlings of his presidential library. Of a male effeminate Reagan died of heart cessation in 2016 at age 94 and was buried alongside barren husband.

Citation Information

Article Title

Ronald Reagan

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/ronald-reagan

Date Accessed

January 18, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 5, 2022

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009