Ronald Reagan

On a website about astrology, Ronald Reagan holds a special place. After he was shot in an assassination attempt in March 1981, his wife, Nancy, began consulting a San Francisco astrologer, Joan Quigley, about which days were safe for the president to travel, give speeches or sign agreements. When the former chief of staff Donald Regan revealed the arrangement in his 1988 memoir, it caused a sensation; Quigley later claimed she had influenced the timing of major events, including summits with Mikhail Gorbachev.

Reagan was born on February 6, 1911, in Tampico, Illinois, in an apartment above a bakery. Accounts of the hour he was born conflict, leaving his Ascendant in doubt, but the planets are revealing. His Sun is in Aquarius, the sign of broad audiences, mass communication and the common good. An Aquarius Sun describes someone at ease with crowds and causes, and Reagan's career, as radio announcer, actor, union president and politician, was built on reaching mass audiences.

His Moon is in Taurus, a sign of steadiness, warmth and comfort. A Taurus Moon is calm, unhurried and emotionally reassuring, and Reagan's gift as a politician was his relaxed, genial manner. Even after being shot, he joked to the surgeons, "I hope you're all Republicans," and told his wife, "Honey, I forgot to duck."

His father, Jack, was a shoe salesman who struggled with alcoholism, and his mother, Nelle, was a devout member of the Disciples of Christ. As a young man in Dixon, Illinois, Reagan worked as a lifeguard and was credited with saving seventy-seven people from the Rock River.

Mercury, Mars and Uranus are all in Capricorn, a sign of ambition, discipline and conservative values. Capricorn favors structure, tradition and authority, and Reagan's politics shifted from New Deal Democrat to conservative Republican during his years as a spokesman for General Electric. His 1964 televised speech, "A Time for Choosing," made him a political star.

Venus in Pisces adds charm, sentimentality and a gift for storytelling. Before politics he worked as a radio sportscaster, recreating Chicago Cubs games from telegraph reports, and then as a Warner Bros. actor, best remembered for playing George Gipp in Knute Rockne, All American.

Jupiter in Scorpio describes power gained through persuasion and intensity, and Saturn in Taurus describes slow, durable authority. He served as governor of California from 1967 to 1975 and was elected president in 1980, defeating Jimmy Carter. In 1987, in Berlin, he urged Gorbachev to "tear down this wall," and he signed a landmark nuclear arms treaty with the Soviet Union. His presidency was also marked by the Iran-Contra affair.

He married the actress Jane Wyman in 1940 and Nancy Davis in 1952. In 1994 he announced in a handwritten letter that he had Alzheimer's disease, and he died on June 5, 2004. The Aquarius Sun spoke to the crowd; the Taurus Moon made them feel at ease.