1985

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Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century

Decades: 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s - 1980s - 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s 2030s

Years: 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 - 1985 - 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

Events

• January 17 - British Telecom annouces they are going to abolish the famous red telephone boxes.
• February 6 - Steve Wozniak leaves Apple Computer
• February 7 - "New York, New York" becomes the official city anthem of New York City.
• February 11 - Wasim Akram takes 10 wickets in his 2nd Test Cricket match, but New Zealand still wins.
• February 14 - CNN reporter Jeremy Levin is freed from captivity in Lebanon.
• February 19 - Artificial-heart patient William Schroeder becomes the first such patient to leave hospital.
• March 3 - Censorship: Women Against Pornography award their "Pig Award" to Huggies Diapers for claiming that their television ads had "crossed the line between eye-catching and porn."
• March 11 - Mikhail Gorbachev becomes Soviet leader.
• March 16 - Associated Press newsman Terry Anderson is taken hostage in Beirut. He would later be released on December 4, 1991.
• March 17 - Serial killer Richard Ramirez, the "Night Stalker", commits his first two murders in Los Angeles, California.
• March 20 - Libby Riddles becomes the first women to win the 1,135-mile Iditarod dog sled race.
• May 8 - New Coke is released on the 99th anniversary of Coca-Cola. It will later become a major flop with consumers
• May 20 - Propaganda: Radio Marti begins broadcasting to Cuba.
• May 23 - Thomas Patrick Cavanagh is sentenced to life in prison for attempting to sell stealth bomber secrets to the Soviet Union.
• May 29 - The Heysel Stadium disaster, 39 football fans die and hundreds are injured.
• May 13 - Philadelphia's mayor orders police to storm the radical group's MOVE headquarters to end a stand-off. The police drop an explosive device into the headquarters killing 11 MOVE members and destroying the homes of 250 city residents in the resulting fire.
• May 25 - Bangladesh is hit by a tropical cyclone and storm surge which kills approximately 10,000 people.
• July - Wreckage from the Titanic is discovered by Dr. Robert Ballard of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The wreckage is filmed with a robotic underwater camera.
• July 10 - The Greenpeace vessel, the Rainbow Warrior is bombed and sunk in Auckland Harbour by French DGSE agents.
• July 10 - After a storm of controversy surrounding a change in its cola's formula (see New Coke), Coca-Cola re-introduces the old formula as "Coca-Cola Classic."
• July 19 - US Vice President George H. W. Bush announces that New Hampshire teacher Christa McAuliffe will become the first schoolteacher to ride aboard the Space Shuttle (see Space Shuttle Challenger).
• July 20 - The main ship wreck site of the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha (which sank in 1622) is found 40 miles off the coast of Key West, Florida by treasure hunters who soon begin to raise $400 million in coins and silver.
• August 6 - In Hiroshima, tens of thousands mark the 40th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city.
• September 1 - A joint American-French expedition locates the wreck of the RMS Titanic.
• September 6 - A Douglas DC-9 carrying Midwest Express Airlines Flight 105 crashes just after takeoff from Milwaukee, Wisconsin killing 31.
• October 7 - The passenger ship Achille Lauro is hijacked by Palestinians.
• October 10 - United States Navy F-14 fighter jets intercept an Egyptian plane carrying the Achille Lauro cruise ship hijackers and force it to land at a NATO base in Sigonella, Sicily were they are arrested.
• October 29 - Major General Samuel K. Doe is announced the winner of the first multiparty election in Liberia.
• November 6 - In Colombia, leftist guerrillas of the April 19 Movement seize control of the Palace of Justice in Bogotá. By the next day 115 people are dead, 11 of them Supreme Court justices).
• November 13 - The volcano Nevado del Ruiz erupts in Colombia, killing an estimated 23,000 people.
• November 19 - Cold War: In Geneva, US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.
• November 19 - Pennzoil wins a US$10.53 billion verdict from Texaco in the largest civil verdict in US history (Texaco established a singed contract to buy Getty Oil after Pennzoil entered into an unsigned, yet still binding, buyout contract with Getty).
• November 21 - United States Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Jay Pollard is arrested for spying (he was caught giving Israel classified information on Arab nations and was eventually sentenced to life in prison).
• December 27 - Palestinian guerrillas kill twenty people inside Rome and Vienna airports.
• December 27 - American naturalist Dian Fossey is found murdered in Rwanda.
• November 23 - Gunmen hijack Egypt Air Flight 648 while en route from Athens to Cairo (when the plane lands in Malta, Egyptian commandos stormed the hijacked jetliner but 60 people die in the raid).
• November 26 - US President Ronald Reagan signs over rights to his autobiography to Random House for a record US$3 million.
• December 16 - In New York City, mafia bosses Paul Castellano and Thomas Bilotti are shot dead when exiting from Sparks Steak House, making hit organizer, John Gotti the leader of the powerful Gambino organized crime family.
• Buckyballs were discovered by Harold Kroto, Robert Curl and Richard Smalley
• First syndication of Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson
• GNU Manifesto first written by Richard Stallman
• Western Sahara is admitted to the Organization of African Unity; Morocco, which claims Western Sahara, leaves in protest
• Ethiopian famine continues -- Live Aid attempts to raise funds for famine relief

Year in topic

• 1985 in film
  • Out of Africa
  • The Color Purple
  • Witness starring Harrison Ford
  • Back to the Future
• 1985 in literature
• 1985 in music
  • January 28 - "We Are The World" is recorded, by USA for Africa.
  • July 13 - Live Aid benefit concert
• 1985 in sports
  • January 14 - Martina Navratilova wins her 100th tennis tournament.
  • January 20 - Super Bowl XIX San Francisco 49ers (38) def. Miami Dolphins (16)
  • January 23 - O. J. Simpson becomes the first Heisman Trophy winner elected to the Football Hall of Fame.
• 1985 in television
  • February 8 - After 6-1/2 years, the television series The Dukes of Hazzard goes off the air.
  • August 19 - David Letterman interupts the Today Show with a megaphone while both shows are on the air. Letterman leaned out the window of his building and announced "My name is Larry Grossman (then president of NBC News) and I'm not wearing any pants!". The Today Show was taping an interview several stories below.
  • NBC becomes the first commercial television network to use satellite interconnection for its stations.

Births

• March 2 - Robert Iler, actor
• October 24 - Wayne Rooney, English football star

Deaths

• February 8 - Sir William Lyons, founder of Jaguar Motors
• February 11 - Heinz Eric Roemheld, composer.
• February 11 - Henry Hathaway actor/director.
• February 11 - Ulysses Simpson Kay, composer.
• February 20 - Clarence Nash, Disney voice actor
• February 27 - Henry Cabot Lodge, politician, candidate for Vice President of the United States
• March 10 - Konstantin Chernenko, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
• April 11 - Enver Hoxha, dictator of Albania
• May 8 - Theodore Sturgeon, science fiction writer
• May 9 - Edmond O'Brien, actor
• May 10 - Chester Gould, cartoonist
• May 12 - Jean Dubuffet, painter
• May 16 - Margaret Hamilton, actress
• May 17 - Abe Burrows, songwriter, composer, writer
• August 12 - Manfred Winkelhock, auto racing driver
• August 25 - Samantha Smith, U.S. activist
• September 6 - Isabel Cox-Meighen, First Lady of Canada
• September 6 - Little Brother Montgomery, musician
• October 2 - Rock Hudson, actor, died of AIDS
• October 6 - Murder of PC Keith Blakelock in the Broadwater Farm Riot, London
• October 11 - Orson Welles, movie director
• October 22 - Thomas Townsend Brown, scientist

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Klaus von Klitzing
• Chemistry - Herbert A Hauptman, Jerome Karle
• Medicine - Michael S Brown, Joseph L Goldstein
• Literature - Claude Simon
• Peace - International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
• Economics - Franco Modigliani