The jumping-off point
Small-town boyhood shaped Reagan's view of America
DIXON, Ill. - The river is where Ronald Reagan began trying to save the world. He was a lifeguard on the Rock River, every summer day from 1927 to 1932. The teen-ager known as "Dutch" watched over 600 or so of his friends and neighbors who braved the quarter-mile-wide stream. More »»

Gipper scores on film
Hollywood credits ran gamut from melodrama to screwball comedy
The presidency may have been the role of Ronald Reagan's lifetime, but it was only one of many. Like all good movie studio contract players of the '40s and '50s, Reagan spent plenty of time in the cinematic trenches, acting in 53 films, most of them forgettable. More »»

'Outsider' wins the statehouse
Reagan shows his political pluck
It was only months after the Barry Goldwater presidential debacle of 1964 when a handful of wealthy California conservatives began to try to sell Ronald Reagan on the idea that he should run as the Republican nominee for governor of California. Reagan wasn't buying. More »»

Shooting tested the stamina, spirit of new president
Positive attitude helped, but assassination attempt triggered a slow decline
WASHINGTON - On March 30, 1981, just 70 days into his presidency, Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley Jr., a deranged drifter who had also briefly stalked President Jimmy Carter. Reagan's positive attitude throughout the ordeal helped establish his most enduring public image: that of a man with a sunny disposition and an unquenchable can-do spirit. More »»

A more perfect union
Marriage was the happiest part of Reagan's private life
President and first lady, those were roles they were ideally cast to play. Sometimes, Ronald and Nancy Reagan could be seen living a script. But the supporting cast, those children - why couldn't they hit their marks and get their lines straight? More »»

Ranch was Reagan country
Ronald Reagan's Water Pik is on the bathroom counter. A throw pillow with the needlepoint message "Roommates" rests in the bedroom Nancy Reagan decorated. An orange Naugahyde chair faces the fireplace in the den. The furnishings and keepsakes, kept at the Reagan ranch outside Santa Barbara, form a peephole into the former president's life. More »»

A vibrant mind fades into 'sunset'
Reagan becomes the face of Alzheimer's sufferers
It used to be called senility. Nancy Reagan referred to it as that "cruel disease." But when former President Ronald Reagan told the nation in 1994 that he was in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, he gently alluded to "the journey." "I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life," said Reagan in the Nov. 4, 1994, handwritten letter to the public. More »»