Ronald+Reagon+-+Wilt

=Ronald Reagan=

4/23/10

 * Born: February 6, 1911
 * Died: June 5, 2004
 * Birthplace: Tampico, Illinois

Ronald Reagan was the 40th President of the United States from 1981-1989. He took office on January 20th, 1981, and only 69 days later he was shot by John Hinckley, Jr. Luckily, he recovered and returned to his duty as President. He kept legislation to regulate economic growth, control inflation, increase imployment and strengthen national defense. Reagan first became a sports announcer on the radio, then he moved to Hollywood and became a movie star and made over fifty movies. But, his real calling seemed to be in politics, He was governor of California from 1967-1965. Later on came his election to office. In his last few years, his administration was dealing with schemes to fund anti-communist forces in Central America-Iran Contra Affair. Reagan stayed strong and made it through the ordeal. After two full terms, vice president George Bush(the elder) took his place in office. In 1994, he annouced that he has Alzheimer's Disease. He spent the next two years in seclusion, then died in June 2004. During his lifetime he married actress Nancy Davis on March 4 1952, they had two kids, Patricia and Ron Jr. Reagan also like to spend time at his ranch, Rancho del Cielo, which was north of Santa Barbara. Infact, his ranch was 18 miles from the Neverland Ranch which was owned by the late pop star Michael Jackson.
 * Early Life**

[|Ronald Reagan] is responsible for the U.S. winning the Cold War with the Soviet Union. He accomplished this through hostile big talk and a huge arms build up that the Soviet Union knew the couldn't compete with. By his third year in office, Reagan spent $1 trillion building up the U.S. military. Reagan promised the Communism was going to come to an end, and soon. Reagan and the new Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev met in Geneva. They both agreed that a nuclear war could not be won. At the time, both the Soviets and the U.S. had 25,000 nuclear warheads aimed at each other. Ignoring a threat like that was not a smart thing to do, but they did it anyway. For two days, Reyjavik, Iceland, Reagan and Mikhail talked about getting rid of the nuclear weapons. The meeting went bad when Reagan refused to give up his dream of a defensive shield named "Star Wars." After the meeting, there was a continuation of nuclear arms agreements. Reagan also ordered American troops to invade Grenada to liberate the island from its ruling dictator. Reagan doing this signaled the end of the Brezhnev Doctrine, which said that once a country goes communist it must stay communist. Which means that Soviet Union would keep gaining territory, but would not lose any. But the liberation of Grenada changed that, for the very first time in history a country that was communist became not communist. They called this "containment" which means to contain and stop the further spread of communism. Reagan kept continuing preventing the further spread of communism, and he did very well at achieving it. In his years in office he accomplished many great things, and none of his admirers will ever forget how skillful of a man he really was.

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