Important Historical Events of the year 1985, Year 1985 in History

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List of 1985 Major News Events in History, Most Important Historical Events in 1985

What happened in the year 1985?

Date	Event
January 1, 1985	The first British mobile phone call is made by Michael Harrison to his father Sir Ernest Harrison, chairman of Vodafone.
January 7, 1985	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 10, 1985	Sandinista Daniel Ortega becomes president of Nicaragua and vows to continue the transformation to socialism and alliance with the Soviet Union and Cuba; American policy continues to support the Contras in their revolt against the Nicaraguan government.
January 13, 1985	A passenger train plunges into a ravine in Ethiopia, killing 428 in the worst railroad disaster in Africa.
January 21, 1985	Galaxy Airlines Flight 203 crashes near Reno–Tahoe International Airport in Reno, Nevada, killing 70 people.
January 23, 1985	World Airways Flight 30H overshoots the runway at Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, and crashes into Boston Harbor. Two people are presumed dead.
January 28, 1985	Supergroup USA for Africa (United Support of Artists for Africa) records the hit single We Are the World, to help raise funds for Ethiopian famine relief.
February 5, 1985	Ugo Vetere, then the mayor of Rome, and Chedli Klibi, then the mayor of Carthage, meet in Tunis to sign a treaty of friendship officially ending the Third Punic War which lasted 2,131 years.
February 16, 1985	Hezbollah is founded.
February 19, 1985	William J. Schroeder becomes the first recipient of an artificial heart to leave the hospital.
February 19, 1985	Iberia Airlines Boeing 727 crashes into Mount Oiz in Spain, killing 148.
February 28, 1985	The Provisional Irish Republican Army carries out a mortar attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary police station at Newry, killing nine officers in the highest loss of life for the RUC on a single day.
March 3, 1985	Arthur Scargill declares that the National Union of Mineworkers' national executive voted to end the longest-running industrial dispute in Great Britain without any peace deal over pit closures.
March 3, 1985	A magnitude 8.3 earthquake strikes the Valparaíso Region of Chile, killing 177 and leaving nearly a million people homeless.
March 4, 1985	The Food and Drug Administration approves a blood test for HIV infection, used since then for screening all blood donations in the United States.
March 8, 1985	A supposed failed assassination attempt on Islamic cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah in Beirut, Lebanon kills at least 56 and injures 180 others.
March 11, 1985	Mikhail Gorbachev is elected to the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, making Gorbachev the USSR's de facto, and last, head of state.
March 16, 1985	Associated Press newsman Terry Anderson is taken hostage in Beirut; he not released until December 1991.
March 17, 1985	Serial killer Richard Ramirez, aka the "Night Stalker", commits the first two murders in his Los Angeles murder spree.
March 20, 1985	Libby Riddles becomes the first woman to win the 1,135-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
March 20, 1985	Canadian paraplegic athlete and humanitarian Rick Hansen begins his circumnavigation of the globe in a wheelchair in the name of spinal cord injury medical research.
April 6, 1985	Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiry is ousted from power in a coup d'état led by Field Marshal Abdel Rahman Swar al-Dahab.
April 19, 1985	Two hundred ATF and FBI agents lay siege to the compound of the white supremacist survivalist group The Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord in Arkansas; the CSA surrenders two days later.
April 21, 1985	The compound of the militant group The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord surrenders to federal authorities in Arkansas after a two-day government siege.
April 23, 1985	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.
May 5, 1985	Ronald Reagan visits the military cemetery at Bitburg and the site of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he makes a speech.
May 11, 1985	Fifty-six spectators die and more than 200 are injured in the Bradford City stadium fire.
May 13, 1985	Police bombed MOVE headquarters in Philadelphia, killing six adults and five children, and destroying the homes of 250 city residents.
May 20, 1985	Radio Martí, part of the Voice of America service, begins broadcasting to Cuba.
May 25, 1985	Bangladesh is hit by a tropical cyclone and storm surge, which kills approximately 10,000 people.
May 29, 1985	Heysel Stadium disaster: Thirty-nine association football fans die and hundreds are injured when a dilapidated retaining wall collapses.
May 29, 1985	Amputee Steve Fonyo completes cross-Canada marathon at Victoria, British Columbia, after 14 months.
May 31, 1985	United States–Canada tornado outbreak: Forty-one tornadoes hit Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ontario, leaving 76 dead.
June 6, 1985	The grave of "Wolfgang Gerhard" is opened in Embu, Brazil; the exhumed remains are later proven to be those of Josef Mengele, Auschwitz's "Angel of Death"; Mengele is thought to have drowned while swimming in February 1979.
June 14, 1985	Five members of the European Economic Community sign the Schengen Agreement establishing a free travel zone with no border controls.
June 15, 1985	Rembrandt's painting Danaë is attacked by a man (later judged insane) who throws sulfuric acid on the canvas and cuts it twice with a knife.
June 17, 1985	Space Shuttle program: STS-51-G mission: Space Shuttle Discovery launches carrying Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the first Arab and first Muslim in space, as a payload specialist.
June 19, 1985	Members of the Revolutionary Party of Central American Workers, dressed as Salvadoran soldiers, attack the Zona Rosa area of San Salvador.
June 23, 1985	A terrorist bomb explodes at Narita International Airport near Tokyo. An hour later, the same group detonates a second bomb aboard Air India Flight 182, bringing the Boeing 747 down off the coast of Ireland killing all 329 aboard.
June 30, 1985	Thirty-nine American hostages from the hijacked TWA Flight 847 are freed in Beirut after being held for 17 days.
July 7, 1985	Boris Becker becomes the youngest male player ever to win Wimbledon at age 17.
July 10, 1985	The Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior is bombed and sunk in Auckland harbour by French DGSE agents, killing Fernando Pereira.
July 10, 1985	An Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-154 stalls and crashes near Uchkuduk, Uzbekistan (then part of the Soviet Union), killing all 200 people on board in the USSR's worst-ever airline disaster.
July 13, 1985	The Live Aid benefit concert takes place in London and Philadelphia, as well as other venues such as Moscow and Sydney.
July 13, 1985	Vice President George H. W. Bush becomes the Acting President for the day when President Ronald Reagan undergoes surgery to remove polyps from his colon.
July 17, 1985	Founding of the EUREKA Network by former head of states François Mitterrand (France) and Helmut Kohl (Germany).
July 19, 1985	The Val di Stava dam collapses killing 268 people in Val di Stava, Italy.
July 20, 1985	The government of Aruba passes legislation to secede from the Netherlands Antilles.
August 2, 1985	Delta Air Lines Flight 191, a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, crashes at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport killing 137.
August 7, 1985	Takao Doi, Mamoru Mohri and Chiaki Mukai are chosen to be Japan's first astronauts.
August 12, 1985	Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashes into Osutaka ridge in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, killing 520, to become the worst single-plane air disaster.
August 15, 1985	Signing of the Assam Accord, an agreement between representatives of the Government of India and the leaders of the Assam Movement to end the movement.
August 17, 1985	The 1985–86 Hormel strike begins in Austin, Minnesota.
August 22, 1985	British Airtours Flight 28M suffers an engine fire during takeoff at Manchester Airport. The pilots abort but due to inefficient evacuation procedures 55 people are killed, mostly from smoke inhalation.
August 23, 1985	Hans Tiedge, top counter-spy of West Germany, defects to East Germany.
August 25, 1985	Bar Harbor Airlines Flight 1808 crashes near Auburn, Maine, killing all eight people on board including peace activist and child actress Samantha Smith.
August 27, 1985	Major General Muhammadu Buhari, Chairman of the Supreme Military Council of Nigeria, is ousted from power in a coup d'état led by Major General Ibrahim Babangida.
September 2, 1985	Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lankan Tamil politicians and former MPs M. Alalasundaram and V. Dharmalingam are shot dead.
September 4, 1985	The discovery of Buckminsterfullerene, the first fullerene molecule of carbon.
September 6, 1985	Midwest Express Airlines Flight 105 crashes near Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, killing all 31 people on board.
September 13, 1985	Super Mario Bros. is released in Japan for the NES, which starts the Super Mario series of platforming games.
September 14, 1985	Penang Bridge, the longest bridge in Malaysia, connecting the island of Penang to the mainland, opens to traffic.
September 19, 1985	A strong earthquake kills thousands and destroys about 400 buildings in Mexico City.
September 19, 1985	Tipper Gore and other political wives form the Parents Music Resource Center as Frank Zappa, John Denver, and other musicians testify at U.S. Congressional hearings on obscenity in rock music.
October 1, 1985	Israel-Palestinian conflict: Israel attacks the Palestine Liberation Organization's Tunisia headquarters during Operation Wooden Leg.
October 3, 1985	The Space Shuttle Atlantis makes its maiden flight, carrying two DSCS-III Satellites on STS-51-J.
October 4, 1985	The Free Software Foundation is founded.
October 6, 1985	Police constable Keith Blakelock is murdered as riots erupt in the Broadwater Farm suburb of London.
October 7, 1985	The Mameyes landslide kills almost 200 people in Puerto Rico.
October 7, 1985	Four men from the Palestine Liberation Front hijack the MS Achille Lauro off the coast of Egypt.
October 10, 1985	US Navy aircraft intercept an Egyptian airliner carrying the perpetrators of the Achille Lauro hijacking, and force it to land in Italy.
October 16, 1985	The Finnish dry cargo ship MS Hanna-Marjut, on its way from Mariehamn to Naantali, sank in hard sea on the open water of Kihti between the Kökar and Sottunga islands of Åland, leading to the drowning of four people.[15]
October 26, 1985	The Australian government returns ownership of Uluru to the local Pitjantjatjara Aboriginals.
October 29, 1985	Major General Samuel K. Doe is announced as the winner of the first multi-party election in Liberia.
October 30, 1985	Space Shuttle Challenger lifts off for mission STS-61-A, its final successful mission.
November 6, 1985	Colombian conflict, leftist guerrillas of the 19th of April Movement seize control of the Palace of Justice in Bogotá.
November 9, 1985	Garry Kasparov, 22, of the Soviet Union, becomes the youngest World Chess Champion by beating fellow Soviet Anatoly Karpov.
November 13, 1985	The volcano Nevado del Ruiz erupts and melts a glacier, causing a lahar (volcanic mudslide) that buries Armero, Colombia, killing approximately 23,000 people.
November 13, 1985	Xavier Suárez is sworn in as Miami's first Cuban-born mayor.
November 15, 1985	A research assistant is injured when a package from the Unabomber addressed to a University of Michigan professor explodes.
November 15, 1985	The Anglo-Irish Agreement is signed at Hillsborough Castle by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Irish Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald.
November 19, 1985	Cold War: In Geneva, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.
November 19, 1985	Pennzoil wins a US$10.53 billion judgment against Texaco, in the largest civil verdict in the history of the United States, stemming from Texaco executing a contract to buy Getty Oil after Pennzoil had entered into an unsigned, yet still binding, buyout contract with Getty.
November 19, 1985	Police in Baling, Malaysia, lay siege to houses occupied by an Islamic sect of about 400 people led by Ibrahim Mahmud.
November 20, 1985	Microsoft Windows 1.0, the first graphical personal computer operating environment developed by Microsoft, is released.
November 21, 1985	United States Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard is arrested for spying after being caught giving Israel classified information on Arab nations. He is subsequently sentenced to life in prison.
November 23, 1985	Gunmen hijack EgyptAir Flight 648 en route from Athens to Cairo. When the plane lands in Malta, Egyptian commandos storm the aircraft, but 60 people die in the raid.
December 8, 1985	The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, the regional intergovernmental organization and geopolitical union in South Asia, is established.
December 12, 1985	Arrow Air Flight 1285R, a McDonnell Douglas DC-8, crashes after takeoff in Gander, Newfoundland, killing all 256 people on board, including 236 members of the United States Army's 101st Airborne Division.
December 14, 1985	Wilma Mankiller takes office as the first woman elected to serve as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.
December 20, 1985	Pope John Paul II announces the institution of World Youth Day.
December 27, 1985	Palestinian guerrillas kill eighteen people inside the airports of Rome, Italy, and Vienna, Austria.