1985

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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.
October 7 - The passenger ship Achille Lauro is hijacked by Palestinians.
December 27 - Palestinian guerrillas kill twenty people inside Rome and Vienna airports.
December 27 - American naturalist Dian Fossey is found murdered in Rwanda.
Buckyballs were invented by Buckminster Fuller
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[?]

Art, Culture & Fashion

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
August 24 - Galen Daniel Maly[?]

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
May 8 - Theodore Sturgeon, science fiction writer
May 9 - Edmond O'Brien[?], actor
May 10 - Chester Gould, cartoonist
May 16 - Margaret Hamilton[?], actress
May 17 - Abe Burrows[?], songwriter, composer, writer
August 12 - Manfred Winkelhock, auto racing driver
September 6 - Little Brother Montgomery, musician
October 2 - Rock Hudson, actor, died of AIDS
October 11 - Orson Welles, movie director
October 22 - Thomas Townsend Brown, scientist

Nobel Prizes

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