Reagan and his presidency: a time line
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1932: Graduates from Eureka College in Eureka, Ill., with a degree in economics and sociology. He had been student body president and swim team captain and was on the football team.
1932-37: Works as an announcer for WOC radio in Davenport, Iowa, then for WHO in Des Moines. He announces University of Iowa football games and Chicago Cubs games. Sometimes he doesn't actually attend the games, but instead sits in a studio describing plays from information in telegraph reports.
1937: Signed by Warner Bros. after an agent spots him announcing baseball spring training in southern California. He made his first film appearance in "Love is in the Air," playing a radio announcer.
Jan. 25, 1940: Marries actress Jane Wyman, whom he met while working on the film "Brother Rat." They have two children — Maureen and Michael — before divorcing in 1948.
1940: Portrays football star George Gipp in "Knute Rockne — All American." Gipp, on his deathbed, tells coach Rockne (played by Pat O'Brien): "Tell them to go in there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper."
1942-46: Serves in the Air Force, leaving as a captain. He is assigned to work on training films.
1947: Elected to first of six terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild; during those years, the union gains so-called residuals pay for actors and a pension and welfare fund.
March 4, 1952: Marries Nancy Davis, a young actress. They have two children — Patricia and Ronald Jr. Later that year, Reagan, along with other well-known Democrats, urges Dwight Eisenhower to run for president.
1954-62: Hosts "General Electric Theater" on CBS. Also toured GE plants as company spokesman.
1957: Reagan and Nancy Davis costar in a movie, "Hellcats of the Navy," described later by a film reference book as a "flimsy jingoistic potboiler."
1960: Although still a Democrat, he supports Richard Nixon for president. Two years later, Reagan registers as a Republican and supports Nixon's unsuccessful campaign for governor of California.
1964: Enters the national political arena by giving a half-hour televised speech backing Republican Barry Goldwater for president.
He defends free enterprise, attacks communism and decries big government.
1965: Publishes first biography, "Where's the Rest of Me?" The title comes from the 1942 movie "King's Row," in which Reagan plays a man who had both legs amputated and uttered the line when he awoke.
1965-66: Hosts television's "Death Valley Days."
1966: In his first outing as a candidate, Reagan is elected governor of California, beating incumbent Democrat Edmund Brown.
1976: Seeking the Republican presidential nomination against incumbent Gerald Ford, Reagan narrowly loses. During the campaign, Reagan breaks with tradition by announcing a running mate — Sen. Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania — before the convention opens. After Ford loses the November election to Jimmy Carter, Reagan returns to writing a syndicated newspaper column, doing radio commentaries and making speeches.
1980: After defeating George Bush and others in Republican state primaries, Reagan is nominated July 17 at the Republican National Convention in Detroit. Reagan picks Bush as his running mate and goes on to win election as 40th president over incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter on Nov. 4. Reagan's best-remembered line from a candidates' debate: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"
1981
Jan. 20: Reagan is sworn in as president; at 69, he's the oldest man to assume the office. "We have every right to dream heroic dreams," he says in his inaugural address. Minutes later, 52 Americans are released by Iran after being held as hostages for 444 days.
Feb. 18: Reagan calls for $41.4 billion in cuts from Carter's proposed 1982 budget, a 3-year, 30-percent cut in income taxes and more liberal depreciation write-offs for business. He promises to retain a "social safety net" for "all those with true need" but proposes sweeping cutbacks in virtually every government program except the military, calling for an immediate $4.3 billion increase. He espouses "supply-side" economics, a theory that tax cuts will stimulate enough economic growth, and thus new tax revenue, to offset the cuts.
March 30: Reagan is shot in the chest by 25-year-old John Hinckley Jr. as he leaves the Washington Hilton Hotel. Press Secretary James Brady and two security officers also are seriously wounded. Reagan has a 2-hour operation and is well enough the next day to sit up and sign a bill into law. The next summer, a federal jury finds Hinckley not guilty by reason of insanity on all charges of shooting the four.
Aug. 3: 15,000 unionized air traffic controllers — members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization — go on strike. 11,500 who ignore a back-to-work deadline are fired on orders from Reagan.
December: Reagan signs an executive order that authorizes a covert operation by the CIA to support the Contras — rebels fighting the leftist government of Nicaragua. The administration hopes its secret backing will bolster the Contras' appearance as an indigenous independent force.
Dec. 23, 1981: Reagan orders economic sanctions against Poland and vows "concrete political and economic measures" against the Soviet Union if the Polish crackdown against the Solidarity union does not cease. A week later, he orders Soviet sanctions.
1982
May 9: Reagan proposes a one-third reduction of nuclear missile warheads in the U.S. and Soviet arsenals. A week later, the Soviets agree to begin negotiations.
Aug. 19: Congress approves a $98.3 billion tax increase — the largest in history — after a lobbying program by Reagan to persuade Republicans to support it. The measure is billed as "loophole-closing" rather than new taxes.
Sept. 16, 1982: Militiamen slay hundreds of men, women and children in two Palestinian refugee camps in West Beirut. Reagan, expressing outrage, agrees to return U.S. troops to Lebanon as part of a multinational peacekeeping force.
1983
March 8: In an address to an evangelical convention, Reagan calls the Soviet Union an "evil empire." Two weeks later, he proposes the space-based missile defense system known as "Star Wars."
Oct. 23: 241 U.S. servicemen die when a TNT-laden truck is driven into the Marine compound at the Beirut airport and detonated. Angry congressmen demand that Reagan bring home the remaining Marines. In December, a Pentagon report criticizes security measures at the compound. The following February, Reagan orders the Marines out of Lebanon.
Oct. 25: U.S. Marines and Rangers and a small force from six Caribbean nations invade the island nation of Grenada a week after Prime Minister Maurice Bishop is killed in a coup. Reagan says the United States responded to a request from Grenada's neighbors to "assist in a joint effort to restore order and democracy" and to protect about 1,100 Americans, including hundreds of medical students. The United States says the dead in battle include 18 U.S. servicemen, 45 Grenadians (including 18 patients in a mental hospital inadvertently bombed by U.S. forces) and 25 Cubans. Fighting ends in early November; most U.S. troops leave by mid-December.
1984
April 26: Reagan begins a five-day "journey for peace" to China, during which he surprises a government dinner audience by launching into praise of the free enterprise system.
Nov. 6: Reagan and Bush are re-elected, defeating the Democratic ticket of former Vice President Walter Mondale and Rep. Geraldine Ferraro. With 54.3 million to the Democrats' 37.5 million votes, they carry 49 states.
1985
July 13: A cancerous tumor is removed from Reagan's colon. He makes a rapid recovery.
Nov. 19: Reagan meets Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in Geneva for their first summit.
1986
April 14: United States bombs two cities in Libya in payback for the April 5 terrorist bombing of a West Berlin discotheque frequented by U.S. soldiers.
November: In a flurry of Iran-Contra developments, the United States discloses that it has been sending military spare parts to Iran in secret for more than 18 months in an effort to gain the release of U.S. hostages in Lebanon and to improve relations between the United States and Iran for when the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini is out of power. Reagan acknowledges a secret diplomatic mission with Iran, but denies an arms-for-hostages deal.
1987
March 4: In a nationally televised speech, Reagan admits he made a secret decision to sell arms to Iran and says it "deteriorated" into a swap of arms for hostages. "It was a mistake," he says.
Dec. 8: Reagan and Gorbachev sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty in Washington. Under the treaty, the United States and Soviet Union agree to dismantle several thousand nuclear missiles.
1988
Jan. 25: Reagan delivers his final State of the Union message: "Tonight, then, we are strong. Prosperous. At peace. And we are free. This is the state of our union."
July 3: The U.S. Navy ship Vincennes mistakes Iran Air Flight 655 for a warplane and shoots it down over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard. A Pentagon investigation later concludes that mistakes by the crew led to the error but that the Vincennes captain made a prudent decision to fire on the aircraft and that no discipline was warranted.
Aug. 10, 1988: Reagan signs a bill to pay reparations of $20,000 for each of the estimated 60,000 surviving Japanese Americans who had been interred in U.S. camps during World War II. Said Reagan: "No payment can make up for those lost years. What is most important in this bill has less to do with property than with honor. Here we reaffirm our commitment as a nation to equal justice under the law."
1989
Jan. 20: Reagan's last day as president. After a swearing-in ceremony for George Bush and Dan Quayle at the Capitol, the Reagans leave for California.
July 4: Reagan, 78, has minor injuries after being thrown off a horse while hunting buffalo at a friend's ranch in Sonora, Mexico. He quips that the incident was "my own private rodeo." But in September, he has surgery to remove fluid on his brain, apparently a result of the riding accident.
July 11: Reagan, returning to his sportscasting roots, provides color commentary on NBC-TV for the first inning of major league baseball's All-Star Game at Anaheim Stadium in California. "After starting at a station in Iowa, I finally made it to the big time," he says. "I've been out of work six months. Maybe I've got a future here."
October 1989: Nancy Reagan's book "My Turn" is published. She writes that in 1983, while missing her friends and her home in California and concerned for her husband's safety after the 1981 shooting, she tried — but failed — to persuade him not to run again. "Had it been up to me, Ronald Reagan might well have been a one-term president," she writes.
1990
November: A second Ronald Reagan autobiography, "An American Life," is published. He writes: "I hope history will look back on the '80s not only as a period of economic recovery and a time when we put the brakes on the growth of government, but as a time for fundamental change for our economy and a resurgence of the American spirit of generosity that touched off an unprecedented outpouring of good deeds."
1991
Nov. 4: The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library is dedicated in Simi Valley, Calif., on a hilltop about 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles. "The judgment of history is left to you, the people. I have no fears of that. We have done our best," Reagan, 80, told 4,200 guests, including President George Bush and former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon. It was 11 years to the day since he was elected president.
1994
Jan. 18: Independent prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, after 6 years, releases his final report on the Iran-Contra scandal. He finds no evidence of criminal activity by Reagan or Bush. But he says senior administration officials deceived Congress and the public and that Reagan "participated or at least acquiesced" in the cover-up.
Nov. 5: Reagan, 83, releases a letter saying he has had Alzheimer's disease for the last year and that he hopes the disclosure "might promote greater awareness of this condition." He said the diagnosis indicated he had begun "the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life."
1998
February: Congress votes to rename Washington National Airport as Ronald Reagan Washington International Airport as a birthday tribute. Earlier, the new Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center was named for him; it's the most expensive federal building ever ($818 million) and is second only to the Pentagon in federal office space.
Detroit Free Press 2004 / Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.