Ronald Reagan

1911 – 2004

Ronald Wilson Reagan served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989, presiding over the Iran-Contra affair in which his administration illegally sold weapons to Iran and funneled the proceeds to fund the Nicaraguan Contras in direct defiance of an explicit congressional ban. His administration ignored the emerging AIDS crisis for years as tens of thousands of Americans died, with his press secretary publicly joking about the disease in 1982 and Reagan himself not delivering a major public address on it until 1987. He fired more than 11,000 striking air traffic controllers in 1981, backed brutal right-wing regimes and death squads in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, and his escalation of the War on Drugs and signing of mandatory-minimum sentencing laws contributed to a generational expansion of mass incarceration.

Last checked: May 10, 2026, 1:06 PM