Sunday · November 15, 2026

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Reagan carries 44 states and unseats President Carter

Inflation, a stalled economy and the hostages in Iran left Carter with six states and the District of Columbia.

Voters elected Ronald Reagan the 40th President of the United States on November 4, 1980, ending Jimmy Carter's single term. The country had spent the year with double-digit inflation and American hostages held in Iran. Reagan, the former governor of California, won 44 states and 489 electoral votes to Carter's 49. Carter held only six states and the District of Columbia…

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More from November 4

Wyoming elects Nellie Tayloe Ross governor; the widow who said no never campaigned

A month after her husband's death, voters give her 55 percent of the ballots against Republican E. J. Sullivan.

Tightrope flies from Johnston Island, and Operation Fishbowl is finished

A low-yield device on an XM-33 Strypi rocket ends the Atomic Energy Commission's high-altitude test series in the Pacific.

Students storm the U.S. embassy in Tehran and seize hostages; they want the Shah sent home

Hundreds of students blindfold Marines and embassy staff and march them before photographers, with Washington's decision to shelter the exiled Shah as their stated grievance.

Joe Biden takes the vice presidency over Sarah Palin as John McCain loses the race to succeed George W. Bush.

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More from Cold War America

A U-2 camera finds Soviet missiles ninety miles from Florida

The film still has to be developed and read before Washington even knows what it has.

Hazel comes ashore in the Carolinas; by nightfall it is drowning Toronto

A Category 4 landfall near Calabash and a flash flood on the Humber River happen hundreds of miles apart, on the same day.

A 6.9 quake hits the Bay Area as the World Series is about to start on live national TV

Light rush-hour traffic, cleared early for the game, kept the Nimitz Freeway collapse from killing far more.

Truman stands on Union Square to honor three presidents North Carolina gave the nation

A sitting president stood before bronze and granite to mark where Jackson, Johnson and Polk were born.

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