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NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATE (NRA) LOBBYING BEGINS
The NRA created a committee to lobby for legislation in the interest of the organization. Its first lobbying effort was to petition the New York State legislature for $25,000 to purchase land to set up a range. -
TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS
Trickle-down economics is a theory that claims benefits for the wealthy trickle down to everyone else. These benefits are tax cuts on businesses, high-income earners, capital gains, and dividends. -
WAR ON DRUGS
The War on Drugs is a phrase used to refer to a government-led initiative that aims to stop illegal drug use, distribution and trade by dramatically increasing prison sentences for both drug dealers and users. The movement started in the 1970s and is still evolving today. -
AIDS EPIDEMIC
In 1981, cases of a rare lung infection called Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) were found in five young, previously healthy gay men in Los Angeles.2 At the same time, there were reports of a group of men in New York and California with an unusually aggressive cancer named Kaposi’s Sarcoma. -
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR APPOINTED TO US SUPREME COURT
O'Connor was elected to the Maricopa County Superior Court in 1975 and appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals in 1979. President Ronald Reagan nominated O'Connor to the Supreme Court of the United States -
CONSERVATIVE RESURGENCE
The liberal wave started during the Progressive Era, gained momentum with FDR’s New Deal in the 1930's, crested with LBJ’s Great Society in the 1960's, and ran out of steam by the mid-1970's. Conservative Ronald Reagan won the 1980 presidential election by arguing that “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem -
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RONALD REAGAN
The Iranian government released the American hostages, the culmination of months of negotiations. Reagan, coming into office during a period of national euphoria following the end of the hostage crisis, moved quickly to implement his campaign promises to substantially reduce federal taxes, spending, and regulation, and significantly increase the military budget. -
MARINES IN LEBANON
During the Lebanese Civil War, a multinational force including 800 U.S. Marines lands in Beirut to oversee the Palestinian withdrawal from Lebanon. It was the beginning of a problem-plagued mission that would stretch into 17 months and leave 262 U.S. servicemen dead. -
IRAN-CONTRA AFFAIR
The Iran-Contra Affair was a secret U.S. arms deal that traded missiles and other arms to free some Americans held hostage by terrorists in Lebanon, but also used funds from the arms deal to support armed conflict in Nicaragua. -
THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW FIRST AIRS
An American daytime syndicated talk show that aired nationally for 25 seasons from September 8, 1986, to May 25, 2011, in Chicago, Illinois. Produced and hosted by its namesake, Oprah Winfrey, it remains one of the highest-rated daytime talk shows in American television history -
MR. GORBACHEV, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!
President Ronald Reagan’s 1987 call to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall is considered a defining moment of his presidency. But according to Reagan’s speechwriter, Hoover Institution fellow Peter Robinson, those powerful words came close to being left unsaid. -
END OF COLD WAR
The fall of the Berlin Wall. The shredding of the Iron Curtain. The end of the Cold War. When Mikhail Gorbachev assumed the reins of power in the Soviet Union in 1985, no one predicted the revolution he would bring.
