+ Ronald Reagan was born on February 6th 1911 in Tampico, Illinois, to John Edward "Jack" Reagan and Nellie Wilson Reagan.

+ In 1928, Ronald Reagan graduated from Dixon High School, where he was an athlete and student body president and performed in school plays.

+ During summer vacations, he worked as a lifeguard in Dixon where he saved 77 lives during the seven summers he worked.

+Enrolling at Eureka College in Illinois on an athletic scholarship, Reagan majored in economics and sociology. There, 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 announcer in Iowa.

+In 1937, Reagan signed a seven-year contract with the Warner Brothers movie studio. Over the next three decades, he appeared in more than 50 films. Among his best-known roles was that of Notre Dame football star George Gipp in the 1940 biopic Knute Rockne, All American. Another notable role was in the 1942 film Kings Row

+In 1940, Reagan married actress Jane Wyman, with whom he had daughter Maureen and adopted a son, Michael. The couple divorced in 1948

+ During World War II, Reagan was disqualified from combat duty due to poor eyesight and spent his time in the Army making training films. He left the military ranked as a captain.

+From 1947 to 1952, Reagan served as president of the Screen Actors Guild. During this time, he met actress Nancy Davis, who had sought his help after she was mistakenly listed as a possible communist sympathizer on the "Hollywood blacklist." Both were immediately attracted to each other

+ they were married in 1952. The pair had two children, Patricia and Ronald

+As Reagan's film career began to plateau, he landed a job as host of the weekly television drama series The General Electric Theater, in 1954. Part of his responsibility as host was to tour the United States as a public relations representative for General Electric. It was during this time that his political views shifted from liberal to conservative; he led pro-business discussions, speaking out against excessive government regulation and wasteful spending—central themes of his future political career.

+Reagan stepped into the national political spotlight in 1964, when he gave a well-received televised speech for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, a prominent conservative

+ Two years later, in his first race for public office, Reagan defeated Democratic incumbent Edmund "Pat" Brown Sr. by almost 1 million votes, winning the California governorship. He was re-elected to a second term in 1970.

+ After making unsuccessful bids for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 and 1976, Reagan finally received his party's nod in 1980

+In that year's general election, he defeated Democrat incumbent President Jimmy Carter, winning the Electoral College (489 to 49) and capturing almost 51 percent of the popular vote. At age 69, Reagan was the oldest person elected to the U.S. presidency.

+In his inaugural speech on January 20, 1981, Reagan rhetorically announced that "government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem." He called for an era of national renewal and hoped that America would again be "a beacon of hope for those who do not have freedom." He and his wife, Nancy Reagan, ushered in a new era of glamour to the White House, with designer fashions and a major redecoration of the executive mansion.

+Reagan's first nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, O'Connor made history by becoming the first female Supreme Court Justice.

+When Reagan took office the economy was one of the double-digit inflation and high interest rates. During the campaign Reagan promised to restore the free market from excessive government regulation and encourage private initiative and enterprise.

+Reagan's economic policies came to be known as "Reaganomics," an attempt to "balance the federal budget, increase defense spending, and cut income taxes." He vowed to protect entitlement programs (such as Medicare and Social Security) while cutting the outlays for social programs by targeting "waste, fraud and abuse." Reagan embraced the theory of "supply side economics," which postulated that tax cuts encouraged economic expansion which in turn increased the government's revenue at a lower tax rate.

+During his first year in office, Reagan engineered the passage of $39 billion in budget cuts into law, as well as a massive 25 percent tax cut spread over three years for individual, and faster write-offs for capital investment for business. At the same time, he insisted on, and for the most part, was successful in gaining increased funding for defense.

+Although inflation dropped from 13.5% in 1980 to 5.1% in 1982, a severe recession set in, with unemployment exceeding 10% in October, 1982 for the first time in forty years. The administration modified its economic policy after two years by proposing selected tax increases and budget cuts to control rising deficits and higher interest rates. After the 1982 downturn, the reduced inflation rate (under 5% for the remainder of the administration) sparked record economic growth, and produced one of the lowest unemployment rates in modern U.S. history (unemployment hit a 14 year low in June of 1988). As Reagan left office, the nation was experiencing its sixth consecutive year of economic prosperity.

+The economic gains, however, came at a cost of a record annual deficit and a ballooning national debt. The budget deficit was exacerbated by a trade deficit. Americans continued to buy more foreign-made goods than they were selling. Reagan, however adhered to his free trade stance, and signed an agreement to that effect with Canada. He also signed, reluctantly, trade legislation designed to open foreign markets to U.S. goods.

+Reagan's domestic policies had a major impact on the American people and will have for many years. He followed p the passage of the largest tax cut in U.S. history by supporting and signing into law the Tax Reform law of 1986.

+Reagan led the battle for a Social Security reform bill designed to ensure the long-term solvency of the system, and oversaw the passage of immigration reform legislation, as well as the expansion of the Medicare program to protect the elderly and disabled against "catastrophic" health costs.

+Reagan elevated William Rehnquist to the position of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and appointed three justices to the bench: Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, and the first woman named to the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O' Connor. In all of the court appointments, Reagan chose individuals who he believed would exercise "judicial restraint."

+Reagan consistently received very high approval ratings, although he was not popular with some minority groups, particularly blacks, many of whom did not benefit from the economic prosperity. In 1986, over 30 percent of the black population had an income below the official poverty level. While many labor leaders disliked Reagan, especially after he fired the air traffic controllers, when they refused to end their strike (1981), he was popular with labor union members.

+As the president called for international cooperation to stop the influx of illegal drugs, especially cocaine, into the U.S., First Lady Nancy Reagan led the campaign against drug abuse, urging the nation's youth to "just say no."

+At the heart of Reagan's foreign policy was the prevention of communist expansion. This was demonstrated in the Western Hemisphere by the strong financial and military support of the Contras against the communist Nicaraguan government, the aid given to the government of El Salvador in their fight against the communist guerrillas, and the U.S. invasion of Grenada when that nation was perceived as falling under Cuban domination in 1983, and the support given to rebels fighting Soviet troops in Afghanistan. While effort for peace in Central America faltered, the Soviets announced the withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan in 1988, ending their futile eight year war.

+Reagan believed that the nation should negotiate with the Soviet Union from a position of strength. To such an end, the administration embarked on a strategic modernization program which included the production of intercontinental missile and a feasibility study for the Strategic Defense Initiative. The increase in military spending, and the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev as General Secretary of the Soviet Union at the beginning of Reagan's second term, opened a new era of relations between the two superpowers. After a number of meetings between Reagan and Gorbachev, the two men signed an Intermediate Nuclear Force (INF) Treaty at the Washington Summit in December, 1987. The agreement promised to eliminate an entire class of intermediate-range nuclear missiles and was the first arms control agreement in history to reduce the nuclear arsenal. In addition, the administration began the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) which would reduce the strategic nuclear arsenals by 50%, including large multiple warhead missiles.

+When pro-U.S. dictators in Haiti and the Philippines appeared on the verge of being toppled from power, Reagan engineered their safe removal from their countries, ensuring bloodless coups and new government which, he hoped, would be friendly to the U.S.

+In Middle East affairs, Reagan reported in his inaugural address that the 52 American hostages held in Iran for 444 days were at that moment being released and would soon return to freedom. The President maintained a firm stance against terrorism, exemplified by the American retaliating against Libya for an air attack in 1981 and again in 1986 for the death of Americans in a Berlin discotheque. Reagan's peacekeeping force in war-torn Lebanon experienced tragedy in 1983 when a truck bomb killed 241 soldiers. Tragedy struck again in 1987 when a missile from an Iraqi warplane killed 37 sailors aboard the U.S.S. Stark, part of a U.S. naval taskforce which had been sent to the Persian Gulf to keep that waterway open during the Iran-Iraq war.

+The darkest hour of the Reagan administration would become known as the Iran-Contra affair. After lengthy, nationally televised hearings, a special congressional hearings review board reported that Reagan authorized the sale of arms to Iran in exchange for help in freeing U.S. hostages in Lebanon. It was revealed that the money gained from the arms sale illegally diverted to aid the Contras, opponents of the Nicaraguan Sandinista government. The congressional report criticized Reagan for his detached, hands-off style of management. In the aftermath of the affair, National Security Advisors Robert McFarlane and John Poindexter, as well as National Security Council aide Colonel Oliver North were indicted by a federal grand jury and convicted of lying to Congress.

+While departing the Washington Hilton Hotel on March 30, 1981 - a mere 69 days into his first term - President Reagan was shot by John Hinckley Jr. and suffered a punctured lung. Hinkley, who was found guilty by reason of insanity, was apparently motivated to shoot the president by a desire to impress actress Jodie Foster, who he'd apparently grown obsessed with. After the shooting, Reagan was taken to George Washington University Hospital, where he underwent surgery. He stayed at hospital for over a week to recover.
Reagan was the first sitting president to survive after being shot in an assassination attempt.

+President Reagan used his address in front of the Berlin Wall in 1987 to issue a dare to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The language was debated internally, with some fearing it was too bold a move. In the end, the president said:
“General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” More than two years after the Great Communicator made his pitch for the Berlin Wall to come down, it did. Reagan, no longer president when the wall came down, traveled back to the site a year after its destruction to celebrate the occasion.

+On March 8, 1983, Reagan delivered an address to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida. Much of the speech was devoted to domestic policy and social issues, but Reagan finished his remarks by turning to the hotly debated issue of the nuclear freeze proposal, which his administration was adamantly opposed to. Reagan said of totalitarian regimes, “Let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the Earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.”

+After leaving the White House in January 1989, Reagan and wife Nancy returned to their home in Los Angeles, California

+In November 1994, Reagan revealed in a handwritten letter to the American people that he had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Nearly a decade later, on June 5, 2004, he died at his Los Angeles home at age 93, making him the nation's longest-lived president at that time. (In 2006, Gerald Ford surpassed him for this title.) A state funeral was held in Washington, D.C., and Reagan was later buried on the grounds of his presidential library in California.

+President Ronald Reagan confronted challenges as daunting as those the nation faces today, and met them so successfully that he’s now considered the best president in modern times. In a recently released Harris poll asking respondents who they consider the “best president since World War II,” Ronald Reagan is cited by 25 percent, well ahead of Franklin Roosevelt at 19 percent and John Kennedy at 15 percent.

+A YouGov/Economist survey reveals that 37 percent of Americans believe Obama has been a failure during his time in office, worse than Richard Nixon. Thirty-two percent of Americans believed former President George W. Bush was a failure, followed up by Nixon at 30 percent. Jimmy Carter came in fourth at 22 percent. More Americans considered Ronald Reagan a great president since 1900, coming in at 32 percent. Reagan was followed by Franklin Roosevelt at 31 percent, John F. Kennedy at 30 percent and then Bill Clinton rounding out the top four at 27 percent.

+My personal opinion is Reagan came into office in a difficult time and he helped turn America around. While I personally didn't experience his time in office, my parents did and they both claim Reagan to be one of the best presidents this country has ever seen.