Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States (1981–1989) and the 33rd Governor of California (1967–1975). Before entering politics, Reagan was also a film actor, head of the Screen Actors Guild, and a motivational speaker.

Reagan defeated incumbent President Jimmy Carter to win the election in 1980, carrying along the first Republican-dominated U.S. Senate in 26 years. His economic policy of supply-side economics, popularly known as "Reaganomics" is noted for a 25% cut in the income tax, reduction in inflation, reduction in interest rates, increased military spending, increased deficits and national debt, a temporary solution to the Social Security issue, elimination of loopholes in the tax code, continued deregulation of business, a sharp recession in 1981-1982 followed by a very robust economic expansion starting in '82. In other domestic issues he failed in his efforts to significantly change social policies such as welfare and abortion, but he did move the federal judiciary to the right through appointments to the Supreme Court and other federal courts. From beginning to end he emphasized his skepticism

cerning the ability of the federal government to remedy problems.

Above all, his supporters and even many detractors credit him for restoring psychological optimism to an America that seemed in deep malaise in 1980. In foreign policy his administration is noted for the vast buildup of the military and change from containment of the Soviet Union to confrontation. Reagan was committed to the ideologies of democratic capitalism and anti-communism, and is considered by many historians and political commentators to be the decisive figure in orchestrating the collapse of Soviet Communism in 1991, as well as the emergence of the American conservative movement. He was reelected in a landslide in the 1984 presidential election, and left office even more popular than when he began. His personality so dominated the decade that the media dubbed him the "Great Communicator" and the decade of the 1980s (in which he was President) is increasingly referred to as the "Reagan Eighties".

Reagan died at his home in Bel-Air, California in 2004 at the age of 93, after suffering from Alzheimer's disease for a