Ronald Wilson Reagan (/ˈreɪɡən/ RAY-gÉ™n; February 6, 1911 â€"
June 5, 2004) was an American politician who served as the 40th
president of the United States from 1981 to 1989 and became a highly
influential voice of modern conservatism. Prior to his presidency, he
was a Hollywood actor and union leader before serving as the 33rd
governor of California from 1967 to 1975.Reagan was raised in a
low-income family in small towns of northern Illinois. He graduated
from Eureka College in 1932 and worked as a radio sports commentator.
After moving to California in 1937, he found work as an actor and
starred in a few major productions. As president of the Screen Actors
Guild, Reagan worked to root out communist influence. In the 1950s, he
moved into television and was a motivational speaker at General
Electric factories. In 1964, his speech "A Time for Choosing" earned
him national attention as a new conservative spokesman. Building a
network of supporters, Reagan was elected governor of California in
1966. As governor, he raised taxes, turned a state budget deficit to a
surplus, challenged the protesters at UC Berkeley, and ordered in
National Guard troops during a period of protest movements.In 1980,
Reagan won the Republican presidential nomination and defeated the
incumbent president, Jimmy Carter. At 69 years, 349 days of age at the
time of his first inauguration, Reagan was the oldest person to assume
the U.S. presidency, a distinction he held until 2017, when Donald
Trump was inaugurated at age 70 years, 220 days. Reagan faced former
vice president Walter Mondale when he ran for re-election in 1984 and
defeated him, winning the most electoral votes of any U.S. president,
525, or 97.6% of the 538 votes in the Electoral College. It was the
second-most-lopsided presidential election in modern U.S. history
after Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1936 victory over Alfred M. Landon, in
which he won 98.5%, or 523, of the (then-total) 531 electoral votes. Ronald Reagan Biography, NetWorth, Height, Age, Weight, Family, Married, Son, Daughter