50 Fun Facts About Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan was born on 6 February 1911 in the small town of Tampico, in which state?

Illinois was home through his childhood, as his salesman father's search for work moved the family from town to town before they settled in Dixon in 1920.

What nickname did Reagan's father give him as a baby, a name he still went by as a young man?

Dutch came from his father's habit of calling his infant son a 'fat little Dutchman', and the name stuck with Reagan well beyond childhood.

Reagan's first paid job as a teenager was as what, on the Rock River near Dixon?

He worked seven summers at Lowell Park and always said one of the proudest statistics of his life was the number of swimmers he pulled out, which he tallied by notching a log.

Which word completes the opening line of Reagan's 1984 campaign ad, 'It's ___ again in America'?

Morning again in America was the ad's promise, and it closed by asking why voters would ever want to return to where they were less than four years before.

Before Hollywood, Reagan worked at WHO radio in Des Moines as a broadcaster for which baseball team?

The Chicago Cubs' games reached the station only as sketchy teletype reports, so he improvised a running account of the action from the studio.

Which Hollywood studio signed Reagan to a contract after a screen test, launching his film career?

Warner Bros. lost him to the Army in April 1942, and poor eyesight kept him out of combat, so he spent the war making training films.

Reagan's nickname 'the Gipper' comes from a 1940 film about which college football coach?

Knute Rockne's halftime plea to 'win one for the Gipper', a request the dying George Gipp supposedly made in 1920, was tied by sportswriters to Notre Dame's 1928 upset of Army.

Which 1942 film, in which Reagan wakes to find his legs amputated, gave his 1965 autobiography its title?

Many critics rated Kings Row his best performance, yet after wartime Army service he struggled to recapture his pre-war popularity.

In Bedtime for Bonzo (1951), Reagan plays a professor raising what as if it were a human child?

A chimpanzee played Bonzo, but weeks after the film's premiere it died in a zoo fire, so the 1952 sequel had to cast another chimp.

Reagan's first marriage, in January 1940, was to which Oscar-winning actress?

Jane Wyman filed for divorce in 1948, and accounts of the split point partly to politics, which absorbed Reagan far more than it did her.

In 1947 Reagan was elected president of which Hollywood organisation?

He testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee that year and, it later emerged, was an FBI informant on suspected communists in the union.

Through the 1950s Reagan hosted a TV anthology series and toured plants as a speaker for which company?

General Electric plant tours gave him years of practice speaking against big government, the theme that later carried his political career.

Before turning Republican in 1962, Reagan was a Democrat who admired which president?

Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal gave Reagan's father a job, a debt Reagan still acknowledged long after he turned against Roosevelt's politics.

On behalf of which presidential candidate did Reagan deliver his 1964 'A Time for Choosing' address?

Barry Goldwater lost in a landslide, but the speech raised $1 million for his campaign and launched Reagan's political career.

Reagan won California's governorship in 1966 by defeating which incumbent?

Pat Brown's popularity sagged after the Watts riots and the student protests at Berkeley, which many voters thought he had handled poorly.

Reagan's 1976 bid for the Republican nomination ended in a narrow convention defeat to which sitting president?

It was the last time a major-party convention opened without a settled nominee. Ford went on to lose to Jimmy Carter, and Reagan came back four years later.

Which congressman quit the 1980 Republican race to run as an independent?

John Anderson finished a distant third with less than 7 percent of the vote, drawing support away from both Carter and Reagan.

Which phrase did Reagan use to brush off Jimmy Carter's attack in their October 1980 debate?

'There you go again' returned in 1984, when Walter Mondale turned it on Reagan, claiming he had tried to cut Medicare after the 1980 election.

Which of Reagan's 1980 rivals for the Republican nomination derided his economic plan as "voodoo economics"?

George H. W. Bush had mocked Reagan's tax-cut plans, yet after losing the primaries he became Reagan's running mate.

Reagan's 1981 inauguration was the first held at which part of the Capitol?

The West Front's first inauguration was unusually warm, at 55°F, but four years later bitter cold drove Reagan's second public swearing-in indoors to the Rotunda.

What happened minutes after Reagan was sworn in as president on 20 January 1981?

Iran freed 52 US hostages after 444 days in captivity, and Reagan broke the news to congressional leaders at his inaugural lunch.

On 30 March 1981, Reagan was shot outside which building?

The Washington Hilton hotel shooting left a bullet less than an inch from his heart, yet at first Reagan thought agents had only broken his ribs shoving him into the limousine.

John Hinckley Jr. said he shot Reagan to impress which actress from Taxi Driver?

Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1982, a verdict that led several states and Congress to rewrite their insanity laws. He was released unconditionally in 2022.

What did Reagan say to Nancy when she reached him at the hospital after the shooting?

'Honey, I forgot to duck.' was not his only joke that day: on the operating table he told the surgeons he hoped they were all Republicans.

Which Reagan aide, permanently disabled in the 1981 shooting, later lent his name to a gun law?

Press secretary James Brady was shot in the head, and when he died in 2014 a medical examiner ruled his death a homicide caused by that 1981 wound.

What was the job of the striking federal workers Reagan fired in August 1981 for defying his return-to-work order?

Air traffic controllers' union had backed Reagan in 1980, yet he fired the strikers and kept planes flying with supervisors, loyal controllers and new hires.

Whom did Reagan nominate in 1981 as the first woman on the US Supreme Court?

Sandra Day O'Connor could not land a law-firm job after Stanford because she was a woman, so she began her career as a government lawyer in San Mateo County.

Which was the only state Walter Mondale won against Reagan in the 1984 election?

Minnesota backed its native son, even though Mondale had openly promised in his acceptance speech to raise taxes to cut the federal deficit.

Which congresswoman did Walter Mondale choose as his running mate against Reagan in 1984?

Geraldine Ferraro's pick excited the campaign, but its momentum stalled once questions arose about her husband's business finances.

What two-word label did Reagan give the Soviet Union in a March 1983 speech to evangelicals?

'Evil empire' was a label Reagan later disowned: visiting Moscow in 1988, he told a reporter he had been talking about another time, another era.

Which senator's jibe about 'reckless Star Wars schemes' is credited with giving Reagan's SDI its nickname?

Ted Kennedy's jibe stuck to a plan Reagan hoped would make nuclear weapons 'impotent and obsolete', and Reagan even offered to share the shield with the Soviets.

In the Iran-Contra affair, arms-sale profits were diverted to rebels fighting which country's government?

Nicaragua's Contra rebels got the diverted money, and in March 1987 Reagan conceded that the facts and the evidence showed he had traded arms for hostages.

Which Marine lieutenant colonel on the National Security Council staff was accused of masterminding the Iran-Contra diversion?

Oliver North was convicted on three counts in 1989, but the case collapsed because his immunized testimony to Congress may have influenced the witnesses against him.

Which city hosted the October 1986 Reagan-Gorbachev summit that collapsed over SDI?

Reykjavík's summit ended with no agreement and was first seen as a failure, yet the progress made there led to the 1987 INF Treaty.

Which Russian proverb did Reagan quote at the 1987 INF Treaty signing?

Trust, but verify was a maxim Reagan used so often that at the signing Gorbachev cut in, 'You repeat that at every meeting,' and Reagan answered, 'I like it.'

Where was Reagan standing when he said 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!' on 12 June 1987?

At the Brandenburg Gate Reagan delivered a line his own foreign-policy advisers had fought to cut, but he decided to leave it in.

Who wrote Reagan's address to the nation on the evening of the Challenger disaster in 1986?

Peggy Noonan wrote the address Reagan gave in place of his State of the Union that night, ending with the crew having 'slipped the surly bonds of earth'.

Which Caribbean island did Reagan send US forces into on 25 October 1983?

Grenada's prime minister had been murdered by a faction of his own party, and Reagan said he invaded above all to protect the Americans there, many of them medical students.

Nancy Reagan's signature First Lady campaign had which three-word slogan?

'Just Say No' was Nancy Reagan's reply when an Oakland schoolchild asked what to say if offered drugs, and Just Say No clubs later sprang up in schools across the country.

Which sweet did Reagan keep in a jar at meetings and hand out in presidential gift jars to visiting dignitaries?

Jelly beans were his substitute for smoking, and one candy maker kept his White House supplied throughout his presidency.

What was Reagan's mountaintop ranch near Santa Barbara, the 'Western White House', called?

Rancho del Cielo was sold by Nancy Reagan in 1998 to Young America's Foundation, a conservative group that uses it to pass on his ideas to future generations.

Reagan's presidential library, where he and Nancy are buried, sits in which Southern California city?

Simi Valley got the library after a plan to build it at Stanford University fell apart in 1987 under pressure from students and faculty.

Which former British prime minister's eulogy was played on video at Reagan's 2004 state funeral?

Margaret Thatcher had been advised by her doctors to give up formal public speaking, so her eulogy was recorded in advance and played at the service she attended.

In 1998, on Reagan's 87th birthday, Clinton signed a law renaming which facility in his honour?

Washington National Airport's Metro station kept its old name after the renaming, until a 2001 act of Congress ordered the transit authority to rename it and change its signs.

Reagan's mother Nelle, who raised him in her church, belonged to which denomination?

The Disciples of Christ became Ronald's church too, but his older brother Neil followed their Catholic father's faith instead.

What was the title of Reagan's 1937 Hollywood debut film?

Love Is on the Air cast him as a crusading radio announcer, soon after he had quit a real radio job to try Hollywood.

Which California gun-control law did Reagan sign in 1967 in response to Black Panther copwatching?

Armed Black Panthers entered the state Capitol to protest the Mulford Act, yet the bill still passed, and even the NRA backed it.

Which economist did Reagan pick in 1987 to chair the Federal Reserve?

Alan Greenspan had been in the job about two months when Black Monday struck, and the next day he announced the Fed stood ready to supply liquidity.

Which associate justice did Reagan promote to Chief Justice in 1986?

William Rehnquist had so often dissented alone as an associate justice that he was nicknamed the Lone Ranger.

In November 1994, how did Reagan tell Americans that he had Alzheimer's disease?

In a handwritten letter, Reagan made his diagnosis public in the hope that it would promote greater awareness of the disease.