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Feb. 6, 1911
Ronald Wilson Reagan is born in Tampico, Ill., to Nelle Wilson Reagan and John Edward Reagan. -
Reagan begins work as a lifeguard at Lowell Park, near Dixon. He was credited with saving 77 lives during the seven summers he worked there.
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Reagan graduates from Dixon High School, where he was student body president and participated in football, basketball, track, and school plays.
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Reagan developed his communication skills as a sportscaster on WHO radio in Des Moines, Iowa, in the mid-1930s.
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Reagan won the nickname "the Gipper" when he played Notre Dame football legend George Gipp in the 1940 film Knute Rockne, All American.
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Reagan and movie actress Nancy Davis wed.
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Reagan defeats incumbent California Gov. Edmund G. "Pat" Brown in a landslide
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Reagan makes a tentative run for the presidency, waiting until the Republican National Convention in Miami to announce his candidacy. He later joins in supporting nominee Richard Nixon.
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Reagan is re-elected California governor.
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Reagan is elected president in a landslide victory over incumbent Jimmy Carter.
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Reagan is sworn in as the 40th president of the United States. On the same day, Iran releases the 52 remaining hostages who had been held at the U.S. embassy in Tehran for 444 days.
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Reagan is shot in the chest upon leaving a Washington hotel but makes a full recovery after surgery. Three other people, including Reagan press secretary James Brady, are wounded in the assassination attempt. John Hinckley Jr. is charged but found not guilty by reason of insanity.
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Reagan defeats Mondale in landslide. Reagan carries 49 states -- 525 electoral votes to Mondale's 10, and 59% of the popular vote.
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Reagan, 73, begins a second term, making him the oldest president ever to be sworn in.
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Reagan gives his farewell address to the nation, in which he says the so-called Reagan revolution "made a difference."
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George Bush is inaugurated. Reagan leaves the White House with the highest approval rating of any president since FDR. Reagan retires to California, travels, meets with various world leaders, and gives public speeches in support of charitable organizations, Republican candidates and causes.
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Reagan discloses in a letter that he has Alzheimer's disease. "I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life," he writes. "I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead."
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Ronald Reagan dies in California at the age of 93.
