Type Homework due March 26

The speech I chose to animate is "Address to the Nation on the Berlin Wall" by President Ronald Reagan. I am planning on doing the last section of the speech (approx. -50 seconds) where he focuses on what he saw when visiting Berlin. The speech is important because the destruction of the Berlin Wall symbolized the end of the threat of communism in the Western world in the minds of many Americans. Overall, Reagan sounds fairly calm and collected during the speech. He does put more emphasis on his words toward the end of the speech when he is asking Gorbachev to tear down the Wall. The speech does a good job of persuading his audience to his point of view - he is calm enough to sound rational, but passionate enough to still sound emotionally invested in his topic.

Reagan was born in Illinois in 1911. He got a job as a radio announcer, which latter lead to his career as a movie star. He made appearances in over 50 movies before he retired and became involved in politics. He was drafted into the arm during WWII where he worked on making propaganda films. He was elected governor of California in 1966 and served for two terms. In the 1980 presidential election Ronald Reagan successfully ran against Pres. Jimmy Carter. He was president for two terms. After retiring Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. He died in 2004.

To see a short biography of President Reagan check out http://history1900s.about.com/od/ronaldreagan/p/reagan.htm

For more information on the Berlin Wall, and its fall, check out http://www.newseum.org/berlinwall/