1985
This article is about the year. For the song by Bowling for Soup, see 1985 (song). For the album by Rufio, see MCMLXXXV.1985 (
MCMLXXXV) was a
common year starting on Tuesday of the
Gregorian calendar.
It was declared
International Youth Year by the
United Nations.
January
*
January 1 - The first British mobile phone call is made (by
Ernie Wise to
Vodafone).
*
January 3 - The
Finnish government announces that a
Soviet cruise missile has fallen into Inarinjärvi lake in Finnish
Lapland.
*
January 17 -
British Telecom announces it is going to phase out its famous
red telephone boxes.
*
January 20 - The
San Francisco 49ers, led by quarterback
Joe Montana, defeat the
Miami Dolphins 38-16 in
Super Bowl XIX.
*
January 21 -
U.S. President Ronald Reagan is sworn in for a second term in office.
*
January 23 - A debate in the
British House of Lords is televised for the first time.
February
*
February 1 -
AM stereo broadcasting starts in
Australia.
*
February 5 -
Australia cancels its involvement in
U.S.-led
MX missile tests.
*
February 7 - "
New York, New York" becomes the official city
anthem of
New York City.
*
February 11 -
Pakistani bowler
Wasim Akram takes ten wickets in his second
Test cricket match, but
New Zealand still wins.
*
February 14 -
CNN reporter
Jeremy Levin is freed from captivity in
Lebanon.
*
February 19 -
William Schroeder becomes the first
artificial heart patient to leave
hospital.
*
February 26 -
US federal
grand jury indicts 15 members of
New York Mafia for
racketeering.
March
*
March 2 - Government of
John Cain reelected in
Victoria for second consecutive term.
*
March 4 - The
Food and Drug Administration approves a
blood test for
AIDS, used since then for screening all
blood donations in the United States.
*
March 6 -
Mike Tyson made his professional debut in Albany, New York, a match which he won by a first round knockout.
*
March 11 -
Mikhail Gorbachev becomes the
General Secretary of the
Soviet Communist Party and
de facto leader of the
Soviet Union.
*
March 11 -
Mohammed Al Fayed buys the London-based department store company,
Harrods.
*
March 14 - Five
lionesses at the
Singapore Zoo are put on
birth control because the lion population increased from two to 16.
*
March 15 -
José Sarney takes oath as acting president of
Brazil after the president-elect
Tancredo Neves becomes severely ill.
*
March 15 - The first
.com domain name,
symbolics.com, is registered by the
Symbolics corporation. However, in this early stage of the rollout of
domain names,
.edu domains, for educational institutions, still predominate over the commercial
.com ones.
*
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 24 -
Norwich City FC win the English
League Cup at Wembley Stadium, beating Sunderland 1-0 in the final.
April
*
April 1 -
Villanova University stages a "perfect upset" of
Georgetown University and
Patrick Ewing to win the
NCAA Basketball Championship.
*
April 1 - In an
April Fool's joke,
Sports Illustrated magazine publishes an article about the non-existent
baseball prodigy
Sidd Finch.
*
April 15 -
South Africa ends its ban on
interracial marriages.
*
April 19 -
U.S.S.R performs
nuclear test at Eastern
Kazakhstan/
Semipalitinsk.
*
April 21 -
Tancredo Neves, president-elect of
Brazil, dies after 38 days of illness -- one day before he was scheduled to take the oath of office.
*
April 23 -
Coca-Cola changed its formula and released
New Coke. (The response was overwhelmingly negative, and the original forumla was back on the market in less than three months.)
*
April 26 -
High Court judge Justice
Lionel Murphy is committed to stand trial on charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice.
*
April 28 - The
Australian
Nuclear Disarmament Party (NDP) splits.
May
*
May 5 - U.S. President
Ronald Reagan joins German Chancellor
Helmut Kohl for a controversial funeral service at a cemetery in
Bitburg, Germany, which includes the graves of 59 elite
S.S. troops from
World War II.
*
May 11 - The
FBI brings charges against suspected heads of the five
Mafia families in
New York City*
May 11 - Fire engulfs a wooden stand in the
Valley Parade stadium in
Bradford,
England during a football match, killing 56.
*
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 61 city residents in the resulting fire.
*
May 15 - An explosive device sent by the
Unabomber injures John Hauser at
UC Berkeley.
*
May 17-
United Airlines pilots go on strike for 29 days.
*
May 20 -
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 25 -
Bangladesh is hit by a
tropical cyclone and
storm surge which kills approximately 10,000 people.
*
May 29 - In the
Heysel Stadium disaster at the
European Cup final in
Brussels, 39
football fans die and hundreds are injured.
*
May 31 -
The US-Canadian Outbreak: 41
tornadoes hit in
Ohio,
Pennsylvania,
New York and
Ontario, leaving 76 dead.
June
*
June 1 -
Battle of the Beanfield brings an end to the
Stonehenge Free Festivals.
*
June 6 - The body of
Josef Mengele is located and exhumed in
Brazil.
*
June 9 -
Thomas Sutherland, a dean at the American University in
Beirut, is kidnapped by members of the
Islamic Jihad and is not released until
1991.
*
June 10 -
Claus von Bulow is acquitted on charges of trying to kill his wife.
*
June 13 - In
Auburn, Washington, police defuse a
Unabomber bomb sent to
Boeing.
*
June 14 -
TWA Flight 847, carrying 153 passengers on a flight from
Athens to
Rome is hijacked by a fringe group of
Hezbollah. One passenger,
US Navy petty officer
Robert Stethem, is killed.
*
June 23 -
Air India Flight 182, a
Boeing 747, blows up 31,000 feet (9,500 m) above the
Atlantic Ocean, south of
Ireland, killing all 329 aboard.
*
June 25 - Irish police foil an
IRA-sponsored 'mainland bombing campaign' which targeted luxury vacationing resorts, arresting thirteen suspects.
July
*
July 3 - The
sci-fi comedy Back To The Future is released in the
USA. It becomes the year's biggest box office hit, earning $218,000,000.
*
July 4 - 13-year-old
Ruth Lawrence achieves a first in Mathematics at
Oxford University, becoming the youngest
British person ever to earn a first-class
degree and the youngest known graduate of Oxford University.
*
July 10 - The
Greenpeace vessel, the
Rainbow Warrior, is
bombed and sunk in
Auckland harbour by French
DGSE agents.
*
July 13 -
Live Aid pop concerts in
Philadelphia and
London raise over £50 million for famine relief in
Ethiopia.
*
July 19 -
U.S. Vice President George H. W. Bush announces that
New Hampshire teacher
Christa McAuliffe will become the first schoolteacher to ride aboard the
Space Shuttle.
*
July 20 - The main
ship wreck site of the
Spanish galleon
Nuestra Señora de Atocha (which sank in
1622) is found 40 miles off the coast of
Key West, Florida by treasure hunters who begin to excavate $400 million in
coins and
silver.
August
*
August 2 -
Delta Air Lines Flight 191 crashes in
Dallas,
Texas, killing 137 people.
*
August 6 - In
Hiroshima, tens of thousands mark the 40th anniversary of the
atomic bombing of the city.
*
August 7 -
Takao Doi,
Mamoru Mohri and
Chiaki Mukai are chosen to be
Japan's first
astronauts.
*
August 12 -
Japan Airlines Flight 123, a
Boeing 747SR-46 plane en route from
Tokyo to
Osaka, crashes northwest of Tokyo, killing 520 of the 524 people on board.
*
August 22 - 55 people are killed in the
Manchester air disaster at
Manchester International Airport, after a British Airtours
Boeing 737 burst into flames following an aborted takeoff.
*
August 31 -
Richard Ramirez arrested for the "Night Stalker" murders.
September
*
September 1 - A joint American-French expedition locates the wreck of the
RMS Titanic.
*
September 5 -
John Howard replaces
Andrew Peacock as
Australian Federal Opposition Leader.
*
September 6 -
Midwest Express Airlines Flight 105, a
Douglas DC-9 crashes just after takeoff from
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, killing 31.
*
September 15 - U.S. hostage
Benjamin Weir released in
Lebanon.
*
September 19 - An 8.1
Richter scale earthquake strikes
Mexico City. More than 9,000 people are killed, a further 30,000 injured, and 95,000 lose their homes.
October
*
October 1 - The
Israeli air force bombs
PLO Headquarters in
Tunis.
*
October 6 - Constable
Keith Blakelock is killed during the
Broadwater Farm Riot in
Tottenham,
London.
*
October 7 - The cruise ship
Achille Lauro is hijacked in the Mediterranean Sea by 4 heavily armed Palestinian terrorists. One passenger, American
Leon Klinghoffer, is killed.
November
*
November 6 - In
Colombia, leftist guerrillas of the
M-19 movement
seize control of the Palace of Justice in
Bogotá. By the next day, 115 people are dead, including 11 of Colombia's Supreme Court justices.
*
November 15 - In separate events,
mail bombs kill two people in
Salt Lake City, Utah; a third bomb explodes the next day, injuring career
counterfeiter Mark Hoffman. The ensuing police investigation leads to the arrest of Hoffman for the two murders.
*
November 18 - The first
Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, drawn by
Bill Watterson, is printed in a handful of newspapers.
*
November 19 -
Cold War: In
Geneva,
U.S. President Ronald Reagan and
Soviet Union leader
Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.
*
November 19 -
Pennzoil wins a $10.53 billion verdict from
Texaco in the largest civil verdict in U.S. history (Texaco established a signed contract to buy
Getty Oil after Pennzoil entered into an unsigned, yet still binding, buyout contract with Getty).
*
November 20 - Microsoft Corporation releases the first version of Windows,
Windows 1.0.
*
November 21 -
United States Navy intelligence analyst
Jonathan Jay Pollard is arrested for
spying. He is accused of giving
Israel classified information on
Arab nations and eventually sentenced to life in prison.
*
November 23 - Gunmen
hijack EgyptAir Flight 648 while en route from
Athens to
Cairo. When the plane lands in
Malta,
Egyptian commandos storm the hijacked jetliner and 60 people die in the raid.
*
November 26 -
U.S. President Ronald Reagan sells the rights to his
autobiography to
Random House for a record US$3 million.
*
November 28 -
Gerard Hoarau, exiled political leader from the
Seychelles, is assassinated in
London.
December
*
December 1 - The
Ford Taurus is revealed to the public. It would become one of
Ford's biggest successes ever.
*
December 12 -
Arrow Air Flight 1285, a
DC-8, crashes after takeoff in
Gander,
Newfoundland, killing 256, 248 of whom were
U.S. servicemen returning to
Fort Campbell, Kentucky from overseeing a peacekeeping force in
Sinai.
*
December 16 - In
New York City,
Mafia bosses
Paul Castellano and
Thomas Bilotti are shot dead in front of Spark's Steak House, making hit organizer
John Gotti the leader of the powerful
Gambino organized crime family.
*
December 27 -
Rome and Vienna airport attacks - Groups of
Abu Nidal members open fire in the
airports of
Rome and
Vienna, leaving 18 dead and 120 injured.
*
December 27 - American naturalist
Dian Fossey is found murdered in
Rwanda.
*
December 31 - The last issue of
The Columbus Citizen-Journal is circulated.
Environmental and weather change
*
Asian tiger mosquito, an
invasive species is first found in
Houston, Texas*
November 13 - The volcano
Nevado del Ruiz erupts in
Colombia, killing an estimated 23,000 people.
*
Famine in Ethiopia continues -
Live Aid attempts to raise funds for
famine relief.
Unknown date
*
Victoria celebrates its 150th anniversary.
*
Capital gains tax introduced to
Australia.
*
Buckyballs discovered by
Harold Kroto,
Robert Curl and
Richard Smalley.
*
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.
*
Solarquest, space age real estate game, first published by Golden.
*
Free Software Foundation founded.
*
Norma Phillips Thornworth elected president of
Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
*
ATI Technologies is founded.
*
NeXT is founded by
Steve Jobs after he resigned from
Apple Computer.
January-May
*
January 1 -
Steven Davis, Northern Irish footballer
*
January 17 -
Simone Simons, Dutch Singer
*
February 1 -
Dean Shiels, Northern Irish footballer
*
February 5 -
Cristiano Ronaldo, Portuguese footballer
*
February 7 **
Clara Bryant, American actress
**
Tina Majorino, American actress
*
February 9 -
Rachel Melvin, American actress
*
February 10 -
Anette Sagen, Norwegian ski jumper
*
February 11 -
William Beckett, American singer
*
February 18 -
Lee Boyd Malvo, American serial killer
*
February 19**
Haylie Duff, American actress and singer
**
Arielle Kebbel, American actress
*
February 26 -
Miki Fujimoto, Japanese singer
*
February 27 -
Abe Asami, Japanese singer and actress
*
February 28 -
FeFe Dobson, Canadian singer
*
March 2**
Reggie Bush, American football player
**
Robert Iler, American actor
*
March 3 -
Sam Morrow, Northern Irish footballer
*
March 11 -
Paul Bissonnette, Canadian hockey player
*
March 13 -
Emile Hirsch, American actor
*
March 15 -
Antti Autti, Finnish snowboarder
*
March 24 -
Haruka Ayase, Japanese actress and model
*
March 26 -
Keira Knightley, English actress
*
April 12 -
Hitomi Yoshizawa, Japanese singer
*
April 18 -
Łukasz Fabiański, Polish footballer
*
April 24 -
Kaori Nazuka, Japanese
seiyu (voice actress)
*
May 2 -
Sarah Hughes, American figure skater
June-December
*
June 9 -
Sebastian Telfair, Portland Trailblazers
*
June 12 -
Tasha-Ray Evin, Canadian singer/guitarist (
Lillix)
*
June 17 -
Marcos Baghdatis, Cypriot tennis player
*
June 20 -
April Matson, American actress
*
June 26 -
Urgyen Trinley Dorje, Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader
*
June 27 -
Svetlana Kuznetsova, Russian tennis player
* June 27-
Nico Rosberg, German Formula One driver
*
June 28 -
Phillip Bardsley, English footballer
*
June 30 -
Michael Phelps, American swimmer
*
July 2 -
Ashley Tisdale, American actress
*
July 12 -
Emil Hegle Svendsen, Norwegian biathlete
*
July 24 -
Teagan Presley, American actress
*
July 25 -
James Lafferty, American actor and athlete
*
August 9 -
Hayley Peirsol, American swimmer
*
September 13 -
Jamie Gough, New Zealand (Christchurch) Mayoral Candidate
*
September 14 -
Aya Ueto, Japanese actress
*
September 17 -
Alexander Ovechkin, Russian Hockey Player
*
September 23 -
Maki Goto, Japanese singer and actress
*
October 11 -
Michelle Trachtenberg, American actress
*
October 22 -
Zachary Hanson, American musician
*
October 24 -
Wayne Rooney, English footballer
*
October 25 -
Ciara, American singer
*
November 8 -
Jack Osbourne, English actor
*
November 11 -
Robin Uthappa, Indian cricketer
*
November 18 -
Rex Goudie, Canadian singer
*
November 30 -
Kaley Cuoco, American actress
*
December 3 -
Amanda Seyfried, American actress
*
December 5 -
Frankie Muniz, American actor
*
December 10 -
Raven Symone, American actress
*
December 21 -
James Stewart Jr., American motorcycle racer
*
December 23 -
Harry Judd, English drummer
January-June
*
January 4 - Sir
Brian Horrocks, British general (b.
1895)
*
March 10 -
Konstantin Chernenko, Soviet politician (b.
1911)
*
March 12 -
Eugene Ormandy, Hungarian conductor (b.
1899)
*
March 28 -
Marc Chagall, Russian-born painter (b.
1887)
*
March 31 -
Jeanine Deckers, Belgian nun and singer (b.
1933)
*
April 8 -
J. Fred Coots, American Songwriter (b.
1897)
*
April 11 -
Enver Hoxha, Albanian dictator (b.
1908)
*
April 22 -
Paul H. Emmett, American chemical engineer (b.
1900)
*
April 30 -
George Pravda, Czechoslovakian actor (b.
1918)
*
May 4 -
Clarence Wiseman, the 10th General of
The Salvation Army (b.
1907)
*
May 5 -
Sir Donald Bailey, British civil engineer (b.
1901)
*
May 8 -
Theodore Sturgeon, American writer (b.
1918)
*
May 9 -
Edmond O'Brien, American actor (b.
1915)
*
May 10 -
Chester Gould, American cartoonist (b.
1900)
*
May 12 -
Jean Dubuffet, French artist (b.
1901)
*
May 16 -
Margaret Hamilton, American actress (b.
1902)
*
May 17 -
Abe Burrows, American songwriter, composer, and writer (b.
1910)
*
June 11 -
Karen Ann Quinlan, American right-to-die cause célèbre (b.
1954)
*
June 15 -
Andy Stanfield, American athlete (b.
1927)
*
June 12 -
Hua Luogeng, Chinese mathematician (b.
1910)
July-August
*
July 2 -
David Purley, British race car driver (b.
1945)
*
July 9 -
Jimmy Kinnon, Scottish founder of Narcotics Anonymous (b.
1911)
*
July 16 -
Heinrich Böll, German writer,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1917)
*
July 19 -
Janusz A. Zajdel, Polish writer (b.
1938)
*
July 27 -
John Scarne, American magician and card expert (b.
1903)
*
August 6 -
Forbes Burnham,
President of Guyana (b.
1923)
*
August 12**
Manfred Winkelhock, German race car driver (b.
1951)
**
Kyu Sakamoto, Japanese singer, well known by his most famous song, "
Sukiyaki", killed in the crash of
Japan Airlines Flight 123 (b.
1941)
*
August 25 -
Samantha Smith, American schoolgirl activist (b.
1972)
*
August 31 -
Frank Macfarlane Burnet, Australian biologist, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b.
1899)
September-October
*
September 6**
Isabel Cox-Meighen, wife of Canadian prime minister Arthur Meighen (b.
1882)
**
Little Brother Montgomery, American musician
*
September 7 -
Rodney Robert Porter, English biochemist, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b.
1917)
*
September 8 -
John Franklin Enders, American scientist, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b.
1887)
*
September 9 -
Paul Flory, American chemist,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1910)
*
September 11 -
William Alwyn, English composer (b.
1905)
*
September 19 -
Italo Calvino, Italian writer (b.
1923)
*
October 1 -
E.B. White, American writer (b.
1899)
*
October 2 **
Rock Hudson, American actor (b.
1925)
**
George Savalas, American actor, brother of
Telly Savalas (b.
1924)
*
October 6 -
Nelson Riddle, American bandleader (b.
1921)
*
October 10**
Yul Brynner, American actor (b.
1915)
**
Orson Welles, American film director (b.
1915)
*
October 12 -
Johnny Olson, American game show announcer (b.
1910)
*
October 22 -
Thomas Townsend Brown, American scientist (b.
1905)
*
October 31 -
Poul Reichhardt, Danish actor (b.
1913)
November-December
*
November 5 **
Spencer W. Kimball, president of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (b.
1895)
**
Arnold Chikobava, Georgian linguist (b.
1898)
*
November 13 -
William Pereira, American architect (b.
1909)
*
November 24 -
Big Joe Turner, American blues singer (b.
1911)
*
December 7 -
Robert Graves, English writer (b.
1895)
*
December 12 **
Anne Baxter, American actress (b.
1923)
**
Ian Stewart, Scottish rock musician (b.
1938)
*
December 23 -
Ferhat Abbas, Algerian nationalist (b.
1899)
*
December 27 -
Dian Fossey, American biologist (b.
1932)
*
December 31 -
Ricky Nelson, American singer and actor (b.
1940)
*
Physics -
Klaus von Klitzing*
Chemistry -
Herbert A. Hauptman,
Jerome Karle*
Literature -
Claude Simon*
Peace -
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War*
Economics -
Franco Modigliani*
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine -
Michael S. Brown,
Joseph L. Goldstein*
Sir Alister Hardy*
Theo van Boven,
Cary Fowler /
Pat Mooney /
Rural Advancement Fund International,
Lokayan /
Rajni Kothari and
Duna Kör
