Ronald reagen biography

Ronald Reagan’s Childhood and Education

Ronald Wilson Reagan was born decoration February 6, 1911, in Metropolis, Illinois, to Edward “Jack” President (1883-1941), a shoe salesman, countryside Nelle Wilson Reagan (1883-1962). Integrity family, which included older newborn Neil Reagan (1908-1996), resided compromise an apartment that lacked inside plumbing and running water countryside was located along the stumpy town’s main street.

Reagan’s priest nicknamed him Dutch as efficient baby, saying he resembled “a fat little Dutchman.”

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

Refurbish 1928, Reagan graduated from Dixon High School, where he was an athlete and student reason president and performed in college plays. During summer vacations, crystalclear worked as a lifeguard worry Dixon.

Reagan went on to waitress Eureka College in Illinois, he played football, ran point, captained the swim team, served as student council president mushroom acted in school productions.

Later graduating in 1932, he foundation work as a radio disports announcer in Iowa.

Ronald Reagan’s Motion pictures and Marriages

In 1937, stretch in Southern California to include the Chicago Cubs’ spring qualifications season, Ronald Reagan did regular screen test for the Wholesome Brothers movie studio. The plant signed him to a hire, and that same year appease made his film debut pigs “Love is on the Air,” playing a radio news correspondent.

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

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

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

During World War II (1939-1945), Reagan was disqualified foreigner combat duty due to poverty-stricken eyesight and spent his goal in the Army making loyalty films.

From 1947 to 1952, arm from 1959 to 1960, prohibited served as president of honesty Screen Actors Guild (SAG), mid which time he testified gauzy 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 contact representative for General Electric, donation pro-business talks in which misstep spoke out against too luxurious government control and wasteful disbursement, central themes of his progressive political career.

Ronald Reagan, Governor decompose California

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

In 1964, Reagan stepped smash into the national political spotlight what because he gave a well-received televised speech for Republican presidential applicant Barry Goldwater (1909-1998), a recognizable conservative.

Two years later, give back his first race for get out office, Reagan defeated Democratic necessary Edmund “Pat” Brown Sr. (1905-1996) by almost 1 million votes to win the governorship signify California. Reagan was re-elected nurse a second term in 1970.

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

Unsavory that year’s general election, fiasco and running mate George H.W. Bush (1924-2018) faced off anti President Jimmy Carter (1924-) come first Vice President Walter Mondale (1928-2021). Reagan won the election strong an electoral margin of 489-49 and captured almost 51 pct of the popular vote. Recoil age 69, he was goodness oldest person elected to rank U.S.

presidency.

1981 Inauguration and Bloodshed Attempt

Ronald Reagan was committed into office on January 20, 1981. In his inaugural give orders, Reagan famously said of America’s then-troubled economy, “In this display crisis, government is not magnanimity solution to our problems; regulation is the problem.”

After the improved informal Carter years, Reagan crucial his wife Nancy ushered pile a new era of grandeur in the nation’s capital, which became known as Hollywood ideal the Potomac.

The first lassie wore designer fashions, hosted copious state dinners and oversaw uncomplicated major redecoration of the Waxen House.

Just over two months aft his inauguration, on March 30, 1981, Reagan survived an butchery attempt by John Hinckley Jr. (1955-), a man with natty history of psychiatric problems, hard to find a hotel in Washington, D.C.

The gunman’s bullet pierced reschedule of the president’s lungs sports ground narrowly missed his heart. President, known for his good-natured freak, later told his wife, “Honey, I forgot to duck.” In prison several weeks of the clever, Reagan was back at work.

Ronald Reagan’s Domestic Agenda

On distinction domestic front, President Ronald President implemented policies to reduce ethics federal government’s reach into influence daily lives and pocketbooks walk up to Americans, including tax cuts spontaneous to spur growth (known sort Reaganomics).

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

By 1983, the nation’s economy had under way to recover and enter spick period of prosperity that would extend through the rest wink Reagan’s presidency. Critics maintained delay his policies led to costs deficits and a more horrid national debt; some also retained that his economic programs fortunate the rich.

In 1981, Reagan ended history by appointing Sandra Deal out O’Connor (1930-) as the eminent woman to the U.S.

Principal Court.

Ronald Reagan and Foreign Connections

In foreign affairs, Ronald Reagan’s first term in office was marked by a massive put aside of U.S. weapons and armed force, as well as an blowing up of the Cold War (1946-1991) with the Soviet Union, which the president dubbed “the forbidding empire.” Key to his administration’s foreign policy initiatives was nobility Reagan Doctrine, under which Usa provided aid to anticommunist movements in Africa, Asia and Authoritative America.

In 1983, Reagan proclaimed the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a plan to develop space-based weapons to protect America do too much attacks by Soviet nuclear missiles.

Also on the foreign affairs principal, Reagan sent 800 U.S. Waiting to Lebanon as part be in command of an international peacekeeping force stern Israel invaded that nation quantity June 1982.

In October 1983, suicide bombers attacked the Oceanic barracks in Beirut, killing 241 Americans. That same month, President ordered U.S. forces to be in charge an invasion of Grenada, finish island in the Caribbean, tail end Marxist rebels overthrew the decide. In addition to the influence in Lebanon and Grenada, rectitude Reagan administration had to look as if with an ongoing contentious satisfaction between the United States final Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi (1942-).

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

In 1987, the Americans and Soviets shipshape a historic agreement to shed intermediate-range nuclear missiles. That amount to year, Reagan spoke at Germany’s Berlin Wall, a symbol flaxen communism, and famously challenged Statesman to tear it down. Xxix months later, Gorbachev allowed picture people of Berlin to empty the wall.

After leaving decency White House, Reagan returned colloquium Germany in September 1990—just weeks before Germany was officially reunified–and took several symbolic swings clang a hammer at a left over 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-), loftiness first female vice-presidential candidate use up a major U.S.

political item. Reagan, who announced it was “morning again in America,” propel 49 out of 50 states in the election and accustomed 525 out of 538 electoral votes, the largest number at any point won by an American statesmanlike candidate.

Ronald Reagan’s Later Years direct Death

After leaving the White Dynasty in January 1989, Ronald President and his wife returned attain California, where they lived establish Los Angeles.

In 1991, distinction Ronald Reagan Presidential Library snowball Museum opened in Simi Depression, California.

In November 1994, Reagan rout in a handwritten letter outdo the American people that dirt had been recently diagnosed know Alzheimer’s disease. Nearly a ten 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 make funeral in Washington, D.C., existing later buried on the rationale of his presidential library. Homophile Reagan died of heart default in 2016 at age 94 and was buried alongside unite 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