On March 4, 1987, President Ronald Reagan addressed the nation in prime time from the Oval Office. He responded to findings of the Tower Commission, three men appointed to investigate the Iran-Contra Affair. The commission members were former senator John Tower of Texas, former senator Edmund Muskie of Maine, and former National Security Adviser, Brent Scowcroft.
 

More Info »

Craig Shirley - author of two books on Ronald Reagan - guest lectures at President Reagan's alma mater, Eureka College in Illinois.  Mr Shirley discusses the career and political campaigns of the nation's 40th president.

More Info »

Former Reagan administration Chief of Staff Kenneth Duberstein reflects on President Reagan's speech at the Berlin Wall twenty five years ago when the president called on Soviet leader Gorbachev to "tear down this wall."  Mr. Duberstein, who was in Berlin with President Reagan, recalls the events leading up to the speech and its impact on the end of the cold war.  This event took place at the Newseum in Washington, DC.

More Info »

Ronald Reagan was born in 1911, and the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery is marking the 40th president’s centennial by featuring his life and presidency in their “One Life” room. We visited the National Portrait Gallery and toured the Ronald Reagan “One Life” exhibit with curator Sidney Hart.

More Info »

President Ronald Reagan's presidency and prior career as an actor is remembered at an event hosted by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Former Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), current president of the MPAA, joins NBC's Andrea Mitchell and ABC's Sam Donaldson to discuss the 40th president's life at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and his film career in Hollywood.

More Info »

Del Quentin Wilber, author of “Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan,” met American History TV at the Washington Hilton to recreate the afternoon of March 30, 1981. On that day, John Hinckley fired six bullets at President Reagan, who had just completed a speech to the AFL-CIO. Using archival photographs and video, and declassified audio from the U.S. Secret Service, we trace the route of the presidential motorcade to The George Washington University Hospital.

More Info »

The University of Southern California hosted this panel discussion as part of a centennial symposium marking the 100th birthday of the 40th president of the United States.

More Info »

Virginia Commonwealth University professor Deirdre Condit teaches a class on the history of reproductive law in the U.S. Professor Condit touches on the 1965 U.S. Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut, about the prohibited use of contraceptives and the right to marital privacy. The class also examines rights and access to abortion, looking at the 1962 story of actress Sherri Finkbine, who had taken medication she later discovered causes birth defects, prompting her to fly to Sweden for an abortion. Also discussed is the historic 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion case.

More Info »

Florida Atlantic University professor Stephen Engle teaches a class on the evolving nature of the Civil War. Among the issues discussed: President Lincoln’s decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation in the middle of the war -- and to use former slaves as troops – and how these ideas changed the Civil War from a fight to preserve the Union, to one about abolishing slavery, thus altering the nation forever. Florida Atlantic University is in Boca Raton. 
 

More Info »

University of Kansas professor Shawn Leigh Alexander teaches a class on the period following the end of slavery to the beginning of segregation. Professor Alexander discusses the failed Civil Rights Act of 1875, the Supreme Court ‘s 1896 “separate but equal” ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, and African American journalist Ida B. Wells work to expose the horrors of lynching in the United States. The University of Kansas is in Lawrence.
 

More Info »