With all of their power and authority, it can be hard to remember that the president is a person just like us, with their own quirks and interests.
Thomas Jefferson had a wine cellar built in the White House, while Richard Nixon and his wife Pat loved bowling so much they had a lane built in in West Wing. But none of these secret passions got as much attention - and negative publicity - as the Reagans' interest in astrology.
Nancy Regan was always interested in astrology, and it turns out the stars played an important role in some of President Reagan's biggest decision. It all began John Hinckley Jr. tried to assassinate the president in 1981.
Nancy told her astrologer, Joan Quigley, that she was worried about her husband, saying "I'm scared every time he leaves the house." Quigley said she could help prevent another attack by reading Reagan's star signs, and from that moment on she worked closely with the First Lady.
But when news broke about Quigley's job, it quickly became a national scandal.
Read about some of Quigley's predictions on the next page!
Quigley's biggest belief was that by timing major announcements using President Reagan's star chart (he was an Aquarius) she could guarantee good luck for him.
In her book What Does Joan Say?, she claims that she was responsible for timing all press conferences, most speeches, the State of the Union addresses, the takeoffs and landings of Air Force One."
In a famous case, she told Reagan to nominate Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy at exactly 11:32:25 a.m. on November 11, 1987. Kennedy passed his vote with a score of 97 to 0.
When news broke, headlines like "Astrologer Runs the White House" from the New York Post shamed the First Lady, but Nancy dfended herself by saying "very few people can understand what it's like to have your husband shot at and almost die, and then have him exposed all the time to enormous crowds, tens of thousands of people, any one of whom might be a lunatic with a gun."
"I was doing everything I could think of to protect my husband and keep him alive," she said, and "nobody was hurt by it - except, possibly, me." Reagan himself only met Quigley once, and said about astrology that "I don't know enough about it to say, is there something to it or not."
Still, the exact time of President Reagan's birth was never revealed during his life, supposedly because he worried enemies could read his star chart and predict his future.
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