Home > Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
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| Order:
| 40th President
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| Term of Office:
| January 20, 1981– January 20, 1989
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| Predecessor:
| Jimmy Carter
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| Successor:
| George H. W. Bush
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| Date of Birth:
| Monday, February 6, 1911
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| Place of Birth:
| Tampico, Illinois
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| Date of Death:
| Saturday, June 5, 2004
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| Place of Death:
| Bel Air, Los Angeles, California
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| First LadyFirst Lady of the United States is the unofficial title of the hostess of the White House. The position is traditionally filled by the wife of the President of the United States, and the title is sometimes taken to apply only to the wife of a sitting pres:
| Nancy ReaganNancy Davis Reagan (born July 6, 1921 (or, according to herself, 1923)) is the widow of President Ronald Reagan and was First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989. She was an actress prior to her marriage. She was born Anne Frances Robbins in New Y
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| Profession:
| ActorAn actor is a person who acts, or plays a role in an artistic production. The term commonly refers to someone working in movies, television, live theatre, or radio, and can occasionally denote a street entertainer. Besides playing dramatic roles, actors m and labor unionA union labor union in American English; trade union sometimes trades union in British English) is a legal entity consisting of employees or workers having a common interest, such as all the assembly workers for one employer, or all the workers in a parti leader
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| Political PartyThe United States has what is for all practical purposes a two-party system, with the two largest political parties dividing a great majority of the vote between themselves in most elections. This is partly a consequence of the first-past-the-post electio:
| Republican
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| Vice PresidentThe Vice President of the United States is the second-highest executive official of the United States government, the person who is "a heartbeat from the presidency. As first in the presidential line of succession, the Vice President becomes the new Presi:
| George H. W. Bush
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Ronald Wilson Reagan ( February 6, 1911– June 5, 2004) was the 40th ( 1981– 1989) President of the United States and the 33rd ( 1967– 1975) Governor of California. Reagan was also an actor in films before entering politics.
1 Early life and career
Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois, the second of two sons to John (Jack) Reagan and Nellie Wilson. His great-grandfather had immigrated to the United States from Ballyporeen, Co. Tipperary, Ireland in the 1860s. Prior to his grandfather's emigration, the family name had been spelled "Regan." On a visit to Ballyporeen in 1984, he was presented with a family tree that showed he was distantly related to both John F. Kennedy and Queen Elizabeth II.[1] Such a ceremonial genealogy would necessarily contain much guesswork, as his ancestry beyond four generations is not known with certainty.
In 1920, after years of moving from town to town, the family settled in the Illinois town of Dixon. In 1921, at the age of 10, Reagan was baptized in his mother's Disciples of Christ church in Dixon, and in 1924 he began attending Dixon's Northside High School.
In 1926, at age 15, Reagan took a summer job as a lifeguard in Lowell Park, two miles away from Dixon on the nearby Rock River. He continued to work as a lifeguard on the Rock for the next seven years, reportedly saving 77 people from drowning. Reagan would later joke that none of them ever thanked him.
In 1928, Reagan entered Eureka College in Eureka, Illinois majoring in economics and sociology, graduating in 1932. He earned excellent grades and made many lasting friendships. The child of an alcoholic father, Reagan developed an early gift for storytelling and acting. He was a radio announcer of Chicago Cubs baseball games, getting only the bare outlines of the game from a ticker and relying on his imagination and storytelling gifts to flesh out the game. Once in 1934, during the ninth inning of a Cubs- St. Louis Cardinals game, the wire went dead. Reagan smoothly improvised a fictional play-by-play (in which hitters on both teams gained an ability to foul off pitches) until the wire was restored.
