In his youth, the actor Ronald Reagan set his sights on something much loftier: a governorship. And he achieved it, getting elected and then re-elected as California governor. In that role he continued to develop the common touch that made him so popular a politician, and set his sights on something higher still: the presidency. Reagan lost the nomination in his first race to Gerald Ford, but he never faded from the public view.

On this day, July 17, in 1980. President Reagan accepted the Republican nomination for president. He would go on to win the general election that year by a landslide, carrying 44 states to Jimmy Carter’s six (and Washington D.C.), and gaining an outright majority of the popular vote.

In his acceptance speech of the nomination, Reagan urged Americans to believe in themselves again, saying, amid thunderous applause, “The American people, the most generous on earth, who created the highest standard of living, are not going to accept the notion that we can only make a better world for others by moving backwards ourselves.”