Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan was the 40th president of the United States. He served two terms, from 1981 to 1989. Before he became president, he was a Hollywood movie actor and the governor of California. He is one of the few American presidents who had a famous career before politics. He lived from 1911 to 2004.

Reagan grew up in small towns in Illinois. His family did not have much money. He worked as a lifeguard during summers in high school and saved 77 lives at a local river. After college, he became a radio sports announcer. In 1937, he moved to Hollywood and signed a contract with Warner Brothers studios. Over the next 25 years, he appeared in more than 50 films. He was never a top star, but he was a steady working actor.

Reagan started out as a Democrat, but his views slowly changed. By the 1960s, he had become a conservative Republican. He believed in lower taxes, less government, and a strong military. In 1966, he was elected governor of California. He served two terms there before running for president.

Reagan was elected president in 1980, when he was 69 years old. He was the oldest person ever elected president at that time. Just 69 days into his first term, a man shot him outside a Washington hotel. The bullet stopped about an inch from his heart. Reagan joked with the doctors before surgery. He recovered and went back to work in less than a month.

As president, Reagan cut taxes and increased spending on the military. His supporters say his policies helped the economy grow and created millions of jobs. His critics say the same policies made the gap between rich and poor much wider, and that the national debt nearly tripled during his presidency. Historians still argue about which view is more accurate.

Reagan's biggest challenge was the Cold War. The United States and the Soviet Union had been enemies for decades, and both countries had thousands of nuclear weapons. Reagan called the Soviet Union "the evil empire." But he also met with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev several times. The two men signed a treaty in 1987 that destroyed a whole class of nuclear missiles. In 1989, just months after Reagan left office, the Berlin Wall fell. Two years later, the Soviet Union itself collapsed.

In 1994, Reagan announced that he had Alzheimer's disease, an illness that slowly damages the brain. He died ten years later at age 93. He remains one of the most admired, and most debated, presidents in American history.