Ronald Reagan was a president.
On March 30 , 1981 , a shooting occurred at the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington D.C. , which targeted Ronald Reagan , the 40th President of the United States . Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty . Signed in Washington , D.C. by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on 8 December 1987 , the treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on 27 May 1988 and came into force on 1 June 1988 . List of Presidents of the United States . The most recent death of a former president was on December 26 , 2006 with the death of Gerald Ford ; the most recently serving president to die was Ronald Reagan on June 5 , 2004 . Ronald Wilson Reagan ( [ ˈrɒnəld_ˈwɪlsən_ˈreɪɡən ] ) ( February 6 , 1911 -- June 5 , 2004 ) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989 . While having planned an active post-presidency , in 1994 Reagan disclosed his diagnosis with Alzheimer 's disease earlier that year , appearing publicly for the last time at the funeral of Richard Nixon ; he died ten years later in 2004 at the age of 93 ; Reagan had the second-longest life out of all the presidents ; the current longest lifespan of a president is held by Gerald Ford , who died two years after Reagan .