Ronald Reagan had a successful acting career before becoming president in 1980. As president, he advocated for conservative policies like reducing taxes, regulations, and the power of unions. These "Reaganomics" policies initially caused a recession but later led to economic growth. However, they also increased inequality. Reagan took a hard line against the Soviet Union in the Cold War, increasing military spending and challenging Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down" the Berlin Wall, which fell in 1989, contributing to the eventual collapse of Communism. However, his presidency was also marked by the Iran-Contra affair scandal.

1. A New Millennium 1980 – the present

2. Ronald Reagan

4. Optimistic and magnetic to a camera; really appealed to Americans

5. Made conservatism seem progressive

6. A conservative F.D.R.

7. Freedom became the watchword of Reagan’s presidency

8. Reshaped the national agenda and political language to a conservative tone

9. Really compares to F.D.R in his effectiveness

11. Curtailing the power of unions

12. Dismantling regulations

13. Radically reducing taxes

14. Tax cuts are radically different from progressivism

15. Supply-side economics

16. Cutting taxes at all income levels makes people work harder

17. Thus, they would keep more of the money they earned

18. The “trickle-down” effect

20. Are we just coming out?

21. National debt rises to $2.7 trillion

22. Reagan’s policies, rising stock prices, and deindustrialization leads to another rise in economic inequality

23. Minority workers hit the hardest due to the lack of union support

24. National unemployment rate in 1981: 8.9 percent

26. Reagan makes numerous TV appearances and acknowledges the events occurred, but he knew nothing about it

28. Lack of U.S. interventional abroad

29. Great bias against the war

30. Very limited and lax foreign policy

31. Reagan uses military aid rather than American troops to pursue foreign policy objectives

34. Based on a market system rather than command system

37. At the Brandenberg Gate in West Germany

38. Challenges Soviet Premier Gorbechev to “tear down this wall”

40. Afraid of the implications of a unified Germany

41. French President Francois Mitterrand warned Europe that a united German could be worse than Hitler’s Third Reich