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50 free Ronald Reagan trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
45 free Ronald Reagan trivia questions with answers. Ronald Reagan packed several lives into one: small-town lifeguard, Cubs radio man, Warner Bros. contract player, union president, General Electric pitchman, governor of California and, at 69, the oldest man yet to be sworn in as president. This quiz walks through all of them, from the nickname his father gave him in the cradle to the hilltop library in Simi Valley where he is buried. The presidential rounds cover the things people still argue about: the 1981 shooting outside the Washington Hilton and what he said to Nancy afterwards, the air traffic controllers, Sandra Day O'Connor, the 49-state landslide, the 'evil empire' speech, Star Wars, Grenada, Iran-Contra, Reykjavík, the INF Treaty and the Brandenburg Gate. Lighter questions take in Bonzo the chimp, Kings Row, jelly beans in space and the airport that now bears his name. About a third of the questions are easy enough for anyone who lived through the 1980s; the rest reward people who have read a biography or two. Every answer has been checked against a reference source, and each question shows its citation and a short explanation once you have answered.
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Q 01Ronald Reagan was born on 6 February 1911 in the small town of Tampico, in which state?
Illinois
The family lived in a flat above a bakery on Main Street. He was the first US president born in that state, though Lincoln, Grant and Obama all launched their careers there.
Q 02What nickname did Reagan's father give him as a baby who looked like 'a fat little Dutchman'?
Dutch
He was known by it through school, college and his radio days, and it stuck with old friends for life. His mother's 'Dutch boy' haircut helped it along.
Q 03Reagan's first paid job as a teenager was as what, on the Rock River near Dixon?
A lifeguard
He worked seven summers at Lowell Park and always said one of the proudest statistics of his life was the number of swimmers he pulled out, which he tallied by notching a log.
Q 04Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932 with a joint major in economics and which other subject?
Sociology
He was a C student who later joked that he majored in extracurricular activities. In 1982 he told the college that 'everything that has been good in my life began here'.
Q 05Before Hollywood, Reagan worked at WHO radio in Des Moines as a broadcaster for which baseball team?
The Chicago Cubs
He recreated games in the studio from bare telegraph reports, and once ad-libbed a string of foul balls when the wire went dead. It was a Cubs spring-training trip that took him to Hollywood.
Q 06Reagan's 1936 screen test led to a seven-year contract with which studio?
Warner Bros.
He would go on to appear in 53 films. His first, Love Is On the Air (1937), cast him safely as a radio announcer.
Q 07Reagan's nickname 'the Gipper' comes from a 1940 film about which college football coach?
Knute Rockne
Pat O'Brien played the Notre Dame coach who relays the dying Gipp's plea to 'win just one for the Gipper'. Reagan's campaigns revived the film and the press picked up the name.
Q 08Which 1942 film, in which Reagan wakes to find his legs amputated, gave his 1965 autobiography its title?
Kings Row
The line, delivered by his character Drake McHugh, was 'Where's the rest of me?'. Reagan called the film 'a slightly sordid but moving yarn' that 'made me a star'.
Q 09In Bedtime for Bonzo (1951), Reagan plays a professor raising what as if it were a human child?
A chimpanzee
During filming the animal nearly suffocated him by yanking on his necktie, which a crew member had to cut off. Reagan turned down the sequel, Bonzo Goes to College, as implausible.
Q 10Reagan's first marriage, in January 1940, was to which Oscar-winning actress?
Jane Wyman
The divorce was finalised in 1949, making him the only US president to have been divorced until Donald Trump. He married Nancy Davis in March 1952.
Q 11In 1947 Reagan was elected president of which Hollywood organisation?
The Screen Actors Guild
He testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee that year and, it later emerged, was an FBI informant on suspected communists in the union.
Q 12Through the 1950s Reagan hosted a TV anthology series and toured plants as a speaker for which company?
General Electric
He visited all 135 of the company's plants and gave thousands of speeches, honing the pro-business message that later became known as 'The Speech'. GE dropped him in 1962.
Q 13Reagan, a lifelong Democrat who campaigned for Truman, registered as a Republican in which year?
1962
Q 21What happened while Reagan was delivering his first inaugural address on 20 January 1981?
The 52 US embassy hostages held for 444 days were freed
Reagan got word at the congressional luncheon that the planes had cleared Tehran's airspace and called it the perfect 'get-off line'. Carter, who had negotiated the release, flew to Germany to greet them.
Q 22On 30 March 1981 Reagan was shot outside which building in the US capital?
The Washington Hilton hotel
He had just addressed a union conference. A bullet ricocheted off the limousine and lodged in his lung, an inch from his heart; nobody realised he had been hit until he coughed up blood.
Q 23John Hinckley Jr. said he shot Reagan to impress which actress from Taxi Driver?
He liked to say he hadn't left the Democratic Party, the party had left him. His first Republican act of note was the 1964 Goldwater speech two years later.
Q 14On behalf of which presidential candidate did Reagan deliver his 1964 'A Time for Choosing' address?
Barry Goldwater
It raised about $1 million for a campaign that was already doomed, and was called the most successful national political debut since William Jennings Bryan.
Q 15In which year was Reagan first elected governor of California?
1966
He beat two-term incumbent Pat Brown by nearly a million votes and served two terms, from January 1967 to January 1975. Brown's son Jerry would later hold the office twice.
Q 16Reagan's 1976 bid for the Republican nomination ended in a narrow convention defeat to which sitting president?
Gerald Ford
It was the last time a major-party convention opened without a settled nominee. Ford went on to lose to Jimmy Carter, and Reagan came back four years later.
Q 17How many Electoral College votes did Reagan win in his 1980 landslide over Jimmy Carter?
489
Carter took only 49. Independent John Anderson won 6.6% of the popular vote but no states.
Q 18Which four-word phrase did Reagan use to brush off Carter in their October 1980 debate?
'There you go again'
He reused it against Walter Mondale in 1984, and it became one of the most quoted lines in American debate history.
Q 19Which of Reagan's 1980 rivals for the Republican nomination derided his economic plan as "voodoo economics"?
George H. W. Bush
Reagan then made him his running mate. The term Reaganomics itself is credited to radio broadcaster Paul Harvey.
Q 20Reagan's 1981 inauguration was the first held on which side of the Capitol?
The West Front
The move faced west, towards the Mall and the country, and let far more people watch. He was 69, then the oldest person ever to take the oath.
Jodie Foster
Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1982, a verdict that led several states and Congress to rewrite their insanity laws. He was released unconditionally in 2022.
Q 24What did Reagan say to Nancy when she reached him at the hospital after the shooting?
'Honey, I forgot to duck.'
He borrowed the line from boxer Jack Dempsey. To the surgeons he added, 'I hope you are all Republicans', and the lead surgeon, a Democrat, replied that today they all were.
Q 25Which Reagan staffer was permanently disabled in the 1981 shooting and later lent his name to a gun law?
Press secretary James Brady
The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, requiring background checks, was signed by Bill Clinton in 1993. Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy and officer Thomas Delahanty were also hit.
Q 26What was the job of the 11,000+ federal employees Reagan fired in August 1981 for defying a return-to-work order?
Air traffic controllers
Their union, PATCO, had endorsed him in 1980. The strike lasted three days, the union was decertified, and employers across America took note that permanent replacement of strikers was now thinkable.
Q 27Whom did Reagan nominate in 1981 as the first woman on the US Supreme Court?
Sandra Day O'Connor
She was confirmed 99-0 and served 25 years, becoming the Court's pivotal swing vote. Reagan had promised during the 1980 campaign to appoint a woman.
Q 28How many of the 50 states did Reagan carry in his 1984 re-election against Walter Mondale?
49
Mondale won only his home state of Minnesota, by fewer than 4,000 votes, plus the District of Columbia. Reagan's 525 electoral votes remain the record.
Q 29Reagan's 1984 opponent Walter Mondale made history with his choice of running mate. Who was she?
Geraldine Ferraro
She was the first woman on a major party's presidential ticket. It would be 24 years before another, Sarah Palin, and 36 before Kamala Harris won.
Q 30What two-word label did Reagan give the Soviet Union in a March 1983 speech to evangelicals?
'Evil empire'
He also called it 'the focus of evil in the modern world'. Some aides had cut the phrase from earlier drafts as too provocative; Reagan put it back.