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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, includng Reagan press secretary James Brady, are wounded in the assassinatiopn attempt. John Hinckley Jr. is charged but found not guilty by reason of insanity.
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Reagan appoints Sandra Day O'Connor as the first female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Reagan submits his fiscal 1984 budget toCongress. The recession, tax cuts, and increased defense outlays are blamed for a projected $189 billion budget gap. Reagan vows to "stay the course," rejecting advice to raise taxes or cut defense.
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Reagan unveils his proposal for a Strategic Defense Initiative, later dubbed "Star Wars," in a national speech: "I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace, togive us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete."
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Reagan gives an emoptional speech in Normandy, France, commemorating the 40th anniversary of D-Day.
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Reagan defeats Mondale in a 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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The U.S. space shuttle Challanger explodes shortly after liftoff, killing all on voard -- six astronauts and teacher Christa McAuliffe, the first civilian to go into space.
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Reagan acknowledges a "mistake" in the Iran-Contra affair.
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In a Washington summit, Reagna and Gorbachev sign Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) tready to eliminate 4% of the superpowers' nuclear arsenals. It is the first U.S.-Soviet treaty to provide for the destruction fo nuclear weapons and to provide for on-site monitoring of the destruction.
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Reagan give farwell address to nation, in which he says the so-called Reagan revolution "made a difference."
