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1911 Born
1952 Ronald Reagan marries Nancy Davis.
1966 Actor Ronald Reagan, a Republican
, is elected Governor
of California
.
1976 U.S. President Gerald Ford
edges out challenger Ronald Reagan to win the Republican Party presidential nomination in Kansas City
.
1980 Former California
Governor and actor Ronald Reagan is nominated for U.S. President, at the Republican National Convention
in Detroit, Michigan
. Influenced by the Religious Right, the convention also drops its long standing support for the Equal Rights Amendment, much to the chagrin of moderate Republicans.
1980 U.S. presidential election, 1980: Republican challenger former Governor Ronald Reagan of California defeats incumbent Democrat President Jimmy Carter
by a wide margin, exactly one year after the beginning of the Iran hostage crisis
.
1981 Ronald Reagan succeeds Jimmy Carter
as the 40th President of the United States
. Minutes after Reagan becomes president, Iran
releases 52 American hostages that had been held captive for 444 days and the Iran hostage crisis
ends. Tim Harkins was born in Flowood, MS.
1981 Ronald Reagan fires 11,359 striking
air-traffic controllers who ignored his order for them to return to work.
1981 U.S. President Ronald Reagan appoints the first female US Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O'Connor
.
1981 Iran-Contra scandal: Ronald Reagan signs the top secret National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), giving the Central Intelligence Agency
the authority to recruit and support Contra
rebels in Nicaragua
.
1983 U.S. President Ronald Reagan proclaims 1983 "The Year of the Bible
".
1983 U.S. President Ronald Reagan calls the Soviet Union
an "evil empire."
1983 Strategic Defense Initiative: President
Ronald Reagan makes his initial proposal to develop technology to intercept enemy missiles. The media dub this plan "Star Wars."
1983 Martin Luther King Day
: At the White House
Rose Garden, President
Ronald Reagan signs a bill creating a federal holiday on the third Monday of every January to honor American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
1984 U.S. President Ronald Reagan meets with Navy Lieutenant Robert Goodman and the Reverend Jesse Jackson
at the White House
, following Lieutenant Goodman's release from Syrian captivity.
1984 President Ronald Reagan
calls for an international ban on chemical weapons.
1984 Ronald Reagan defeats Walter F. Mondale in the U.S. presidential election with 59% of the popular vote, the highest since Richard Nixon
's 61% victory in 1972. Reagan carries 49 states; Mondale wins only his home state of Minnesota
by a mere 3,761 vote margin and the District of Columbia.
1985 U.S. President Ronald Reagan is sworn in for a second term in offi
1985 U.S. President Ronald Reagan joins German Chancellor Helmut Kohl
for a controversial funeral service at a cemetery in Bitburg, Germany, which includes the graves of 59 elite S.S. troops from World War II
.
1985 Cold War
: In Geneva
, U.S. President
Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union
leader Mikhail Gorbachev
meet for the first time.
1985 U.S. President
Ronald Reagan sells the rights to his autobiography to Random House for a record US$3 million.
1986 President Ronald Reagan
signs the Goldwater-Nichols Act into law, making official the largest reorganization of the United States Department of Defense
since the Air Force
was made a separate branch of service in 1947.
1986 Iran-Contra Affair
: U.S. President Ronald Reagan announces that as of Monday, December 1 former Senator John Tower, former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie, and former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft will serve as members of the Special Review Board looking into the scandal (they became known as the Tower Commission). Reagan denies involvement in the scandal.
1987 U.S. President Ronald Reagan undergoes prostate surgery, causing speculation about his physical fitness to continue in offi
1987 Iran-Contra affair
: The Tower Commission rebukes U.S. President Ronald Reagan for not controlling his National Security staff.
1987 During a visit to Berlin, Germany, U.S. President Ronald Reagan challenges Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev
to tear down the Berlin Wall
.
1987 U.S. President Ronald Reagan nominates former Solicitor General Robert Bork
, a controversial conservative judge and legal scholar, to the U.S. Supreme Court.
1987 On a vote of 58-42, the United States Senate
rejects President
Ronald Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork
to the U.S. Supreme Court.
1987 The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is signed in Washington, D.C. by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
.
1988 The United States House of Representatives
, controlled by the Democratic Party
, rejects U.S. President Ronald Reagan's request for $36.25 million to support the Nicaraguan Contras.
1988 War on Drugs
: U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs a bill providing the death penalty for murderous drug traffickers.
1989 George Herbert Walker Bush
succeeds Ronald Wilson Reagan
as the 41st President of the United States of America.
1991 Ronald Reagan's
presidential library opens in Simi Valley.
1994 A letter by former US President Ronald Reagan is released that announces he has Alzheimer's disease.
2004 Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan dies at age 93.
2004 Died
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Timeline
