🎬Ronald Reagan

40th President · 1981–1989

Ronald Reagan was a radio announcer, a Hollywood actor, and a two-term governor of California before he became the oldest man ever elected to the presidency at 69. His eight years in office cut top marginal tax rates, ramped up military spending, and coincided with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. Admirers call him the architect of American victory in the Cold War; critics point to growing deficits and inequality.

From Illinois to Hollywood

Reagan grew up in small-town Illinois, worked his way through Eureka College, and began his career as a sports announcer for Iowa radio stations in the 1930s. A screen test landed him a contract with Warner Brothers in 1937, and he spent the next two decades acting in more than 50 films — his best-known role was as the dying Notre Dame football player George Gipp in Knute Rockne, All American (1940), which gave him the lifelong nickname "the Gipper."

He served as president of the Screen Actors Guild during the McCarthy era, cooperating with the House Un-American Activities Committee. Originally a New Deal Democrat, he shifted steadily to the right through the 1950s and formally switched parties in 1962.

Governor of California

Reagan's 1964 televised speech in support of Barry Goldwater, "A Time for Choosing," launched his political career. Two years later, in 1966, he was elected Governor of California, defeating incumbent Democrat Pat Brown. He served two terms in Sacramento and ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 and 1976 before finally winning it — and the general election — in 1980.

The Reagan Revolution

Reagan's domestic program was built on four pillars: cutting tax rates, reducing domestic spending, reducing federal regulation, and controlling inflation through tight monetary policy at the Federal Reserve. His 1981 tax cut — the Economic Recovery Tax Act — reduced the top marginal income tax rate from 70 percent to 50 percent, and a 1986 reform brought it to 28 percent. Inflation, which had topped 13 percent in 1980, fell to around 4 percent by 1983 under Fed Chairman Paul Volcker's aggressive rate hikes. Unemployment spiked sharply during the 1981–82 recession, then fell through the rest of the decade.

The Assassination Attempt

On March 30, 1981 — just 69 days into his first term — Reagan was shot outside the Washington Hilton by John Hinckley Jr. The bullet missed his heart by less than an inch. He walked into the hospital under his own power, quipping to surgeons, "I hope you're all Republicans." He recovered fully and returned to work within weeks. His press secretary James Brady was gravely wounded in the attack and spent the rest of his life advocating for gun control.

Cold War

Reagan took office with tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union near their post-1962 peak. He expanded the defense budget, deployed Pershing II missiles to Europe, and in a 1983 speech called the Soviet Union an "evil empire." He proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars"), a space-based missile defense system that was more concept than reality but pressured the Soviet economy. After Mikhail Gorbachev took power in 1985, Reagan began a series of personal summits that produced the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 1987 — the first treaty to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons.

In June 1987, standing at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, Reagan issued the most famous challenge of his presidency: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." The wall came down in November 1989, ten months after Reagan left office.

Iran-Contra and Late Years

The darkest chapter of Reagan's second term was the Iran-Contra affair, a scandal in which officials secretly sold arms to Iran and used the proceeds to fund anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua, bypassing a congressional ban. Reagan denied knowing details but accepted responsibility in a March 1987 address. In 1994, five years after leaving office, he announced in a handwritten letter that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. He died at his California home in 2004 at age 93.

Reagan Trivia

• Reagan was the oldest person elected president until Joe Biden in 2020 and Donald Trump in 2024.
• He is the only U.S. president to have been divorced — his first marriage to actress Jane Wyman ended in 1949. He married Nancy Davis in 1952.
• He delivered the commencement address at Eureka College, his alma mater, 49 years after graduating.
• His "Morning in America" campaign ad in 1984 is considered one of the most effective political advertisements ever produced.
• Washington National Airport was renamed Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in 1998.

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