1985

Events

January

• January 1
• * The Internet's Domain Name System is created.
• * Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a new agreement on fishing rights.
• January 7 - Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launches Sakigake, Japan's first interplanetary spacecraft and the first deep space probe to be launched by any country other than the United States or the Soviet Union.
• January 15 - Tancredo Neves is elected president of Brazil by the Congress, ending the 21-year military rule.
• January 27 - The Economic Cooperation Organization is formed, in Tehran.
• January 28 - The charity single record "We Are the World" is recorded by USA for Africa.

  February

• February 4 – The border between Gibraltar and Spain reopens for the first time since Francisco Franco closed it in 1969.
• February 5 – Australia cancels its involvement in U.S.-led MX missile tests.
• February 9 – U.S. drug agent Kiki Camarena is kidnapped and murdered in Mexico by drug traffickers; his body is later discovered on March 5.
• February 14 – Lebanon hostage crisis: CNN reporter Jeremy Levin is freed from captivity in Lebanon.
• February 16
• * Israel begins withdrawing troops from Lebanon.
• * The ideology of Hezbollah is declared in a program issued in Beirut.
• February 19
• *William J. Schroeder becomes the first patient with an artificial heart to leave the hospital.
• *Iberia Airlines Flight 610 crashes, killing all 148 on board.
• *China Airlines Flight 006 is involved in a mid-air incident; while there are 22 minor injuries and 2 serious injuries, no one is killed.
• February 25 – Tears for Fears release their second studio album, Songs from the Big Chair, which includes the hit singles "Shout" and "Everybody Wants to Rule the World."
• February 28 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army carries out a mortar attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary police station at Newry in Northern Ireland. With nine officers dead, it is the highest loss of life for the RUC on a single day.

  March

• March - The GNU Manifesto, written by Richard Stallman, is first published.
• March 1 - After a 12-year-long dictatorship, Julio María Sanguinetti is sworn in as the first democratically elected President of Uruguay.
• March 3 - The 8.0 Algarrobo earthquake hits Santiago and Valparaíso, Chile, leaving 177 dead, 2,575 injured, 142,489 houses destroyed, and approximately a million people homeless.
• March 6 – Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou instigated a constitutional crisis to divert voter's attention from the deterioration of the Greek economy, by suddenly not supporting Konstantinos Karamanlis for a second term as President of Greece and violating constitutional voting protocol to get his presidential candidate to power. At the same time, he proposed a constitutional reforms to remove constitutional checks and balances constraining his position.
• March 8 - A Beirut car bomb, planted in an attempt to assassinate Islamic cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, kills more than 80 people and injures 200 more.
• March 11
• *Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and de facto leader of the Soviet Union.
• * Mohamed Al-Fayed buys the London-based department store company Harrods.
• March 15 - Vice-president José Sarney, upon becoming vice president, assumes the duties of president of Brazil, as the new president Tancredo Neves had become severely ill the day before. Sarney would later become Brazil's first civilian president in 21 years, upon Neves' death on April 21.
• March 16 - Lebanon hostage crisis: US journalist Terry Anderson is taken hostage in Beirut; he remains a prisoner until December 4, 1991.
• March 17 - Expo '85, an international exhibition, opens in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan, running until September 16.
• March 18 - Australia's longest-running soap opera, Neighbours, debuts on Seven Network.
• March 21 - Canadian paraplegic athlete and activist Rick Hansen sets out on his 26-month, Man in Motion tour, which raises US$26 million for spinal cord research and quality-of-life initiatives.
• March 25
• * The 57th Academy Awards are held in Los Angeles, with Amadeus winning Best Picture.
• * The Organization Commune Africaine et Malgache is officially dissolved.
• March 29 - two Lockheed CC-130H Hercules of the RCAF collided mid-air above the Canadian Forces base in Edmonton killing 10 servicemen.
• March 31 – The inaugural WrestleMania is held in Madison Square Garden, New York, and is "main-evented" by Hulk Hogan and Mr. T vs. Paul Orndorff and Roddy Piper in a tag-team match.

  April

• Soviet–Afghan War: The Soviet Union begins to transfer the burden of fighting the mujahideen to the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, a cause of the Revolutions of 1989.
• April 1 – Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation, and Japan Tobacco and Salt Public Corporation, are privatized and change their names to Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, and Japan Tobacco, respectively.
• April 12 – El Descanso bombing: A terrorist bombing attributed to the Islamic Jihad Organization in the El Descanso restaurant near Madrid, Spain, mostly attended by U.S. personnel from the Torrejón Air Base, causes 18 deaths and 82 injuries.
• April 15 – South Africa ends its ban on interracial marriages.
• April 19 – The Soviet Union performs a nuclear weapon test in eastern Kazakhstan.
• April 23 – Coca-Cola changes its formula and releases New Coke. The response is overwhelmingly negative and the original formula is back on the market in less than three months.
• April 28 – The Australian Nuclear Disarmament Party splits.

  May

• May 4 – The 30th Eurovision Song Contest takes place in Gothenburg, Sweden and is won by the Bobbysocks! song La det swinge for Norway.
• May 5 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan joins West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl for a controversial funeral service at a cemetery in Bitburg, West Germany, which includes the graves of 59 elite S.S. troops from World War II.
• May 9 – The 3rd total Victory Day Parade is held on Red Square in Moscow in the Soviet Union. It features T-34-85 tanks, veterans of World War II from Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, and is the first parade to be held during the reign of Mikhail Gorbachev.
• May 11
• * The FBI brings charges against the suspected heads of the five Mafia families in New York City.
• * Bradford City stadium fire: A fire engulfs a wooden stand at the Valley Parade stadium in Bradford, England, during an Association football match, killing 56 people.
• May 15 – Argentine President Raúl Alfonsín terminates Argentine administration of the Falkland Islands but does not relinquish Argentina's claim to the islands.
• May 16 – Scientists of the British Antarctic Survey announce the discovery of the ozone hole.
• May 25 – Approximately 10,000 people are killed when Bangladesh is affected by the storm surge from Tropical Storm One.
• May 26 – Young driver Danny Sullivan beats veteran Mario Andretti to win the 1985 Indianapolis 500.
• May 29 – Heysel Stadium disaster: Thirty-nine spectators are killed in rioting on the terraces during the European Cup final between Liverpool F.C. and Juventus at Heysel Stadium in Brussels, Belgium.
• May 31 – Forty-four tornadoes hit Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Ontario, including a rare and powerful F5. In total, the event kills 90 people.

  June

• June 6 – The remains of Josef Mengele, the physician notorious for Nazi human experimentation on inmates of Auschwitz concentration camp, buried in 1979 under the name of Wolfgang Gerhard, are exhumed in Embu das Artes, Brazil.
• June 14
• *TWA Flight 847, carrying 153 passengers from Athens to Rome, is hijacked by a Hezbollah fringe group. One passenger, U.S. Navy Petty Officer Robert Stethem, is killed. Greek police arrest a 65-year-old Lebanese suspect on September 21, 2019.
• * The Schengen Agreement is signed between certain member states of the European Economic Community, creating the Schengen Area, a bloc of 5 states with no internal border controls.
• June 15 – Studio Ghibli, an animation studio, is founded in Tokyo.
• June 20 – 1985 Nepal bombings: A series of bomb blasts occurs in Kathmandu and other cities of Nepal.
• June 22 – British and Irish police foil a "mainland bombing campaign" sponsored by the Provisional Irish Republican Army which targets luxury vacation resorts.
• June 23 – Air India Flight 182, a Boeing 747, is blown up by a terrorist bomb 31,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, south of Ireland, on a Montreal–London–Delhi flight, killing all 329 aboard.
• June 24 – STS-51-G: Space Shuttle Discovery completes its mission, best remembered for having Sultan bin Salman Al Saud, the first Arab and first Muslim in space, as a payload specialist.
• June 26 – The iconic U.S. Route 66 is officially decommissioned.

  July

• July 1 – The Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons enters into force.
• July 10
• * The Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior is bombed and sunk in Auckland Harbour by French DGSE agents.
• * Aeroflot Flight 5143 crashes near Uchquduq, Uzbek SSR, Soviet Union, killing all 200 people on board.
• July 13 – Live Aid benefit concerts in London and Philadelphia raise over £50 million for famine relief in Ethiopia.
• July 19
• *New Hampshire teacher Christa McAuliffe is selected as the first person to go into space under the Teacher in Space Project, and designated to ride aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger.
• * The Val di Stava dam collapses in Italy, killing 268 people, destroying 63 buildings, and demolishing eight bridges.
• July 20 – State President of South Africa, P. W. Botha, declares a state of emergency in 36 magisterial districts of South Africa amid growing civil unrest in black townships.