PRESIDENTS DAY
Born: February 6, 1911, at Tampico, Illinois
Education: Graduated from eureka College in Illinois.
Occupation: Actor, public official.
Religion: Christian Church.
Family life: Married Jane Wyman in 1940, they had two children Michael Reagan (adopted) and Maureen Reagan. They divorced in 1948. He married Nancy Davis in 1951; in a simple ceremony in Los Angeles in the Little Brown Church in the Valley. Mrs. Reagan soon retired from making movies so she "could be the wife I wanted to be. A woman's real happiness and real fulfillment come from within the home with her husband and children," she says. President and Mrs. Reagan have a daughter, Patricia Ann, and a son, Ronald Prescott. Nancy has written several books. Now living in retirement with her husband in California, she continues to work on her campaign to teach children to "just say no" to drugs, though her husband and her home remain her first priority. In her book My Turn, published in 1989, she gives her own account of her life in the White House. Through the joys and sorrows of those days, including the assassination attempt on her husband, Nancy Reagan held fast to her belief in love, honesty, and selflessness. "The ideals have endured because they are right and are no less right today than yesterday."
Political career: Governor of California, 1967-1974. Nominated for presidency in 1980.
Hightlights of his presidency: Elected as advocate of large tax cuts and reduction in size of government. On January 20, 1981, Reagan took office. Only 69 days later he was shot by a would-be assassin, but quickly recovered and returned to duty. His grace and wit during the dangerous incident caused his popularity to soar. In 1986 Reagan obtained an overhaul of the income tax code, which eliminated many deductions and exempted millions of people with low incomes. At the end of his administration, the Nation was enjoying its longest recorded period of peacetime prosperity without recession or depression.
Appearance: Tall, brown hair, blue eyes.
Abraham Lincoln * Calvin Coolidge * Thomas Jefferson * Andrew Johnson
Herbert Hoover * James Madison * Ulysses S. Grant * Franklin D. Roosevelt
James Monroe * Rutherford B. Hayes * Harry S Truman
John Quincy Adams * James A. Garfield * Dwight D. Eisenhower * Andrew Jackson Chester A. Arthur * John F. Kennedy * Martin Van Buren * Grover Cleveland
Lyndon B. Johnson * William Henry Harrison * Benjamin Harrison * Richard M. Nixon
John Tyler * Grover Cleveland * Gerald Ford * James K. Polk * William McKinley
James E. Carter * Zachary Taylor * Theodore Roosevelt * Ronald W. Reagan
Millard Fillmore * William Howard Taft * George Bush * Franklin Pierce
Woodrow Wilson * William J. Clinton
