January
January 1
The Internet's Domain Name System is created.
Greenland is withdrawn from the European Economic Community.
January 10 – Kenya recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
January 15 – Tancredo Neves is elected president of Brazil by the Congress, ending the 21-year military rule.
January 17 – British Telecom announces it is going to phase out its famous red telephone boxes.
January 20 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan is privately sworn in for a second term in office (publicly sworn in, January 21).
January 27 – The Economic Cooperation Organization is (ECO) formed.
January 28 – In Hollywood, the charity single "We Are the World" is recorded by USA for Africa.
February
February 4 - The border between Gibraltar and Spain reopens 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 Enrique Camarena is kidnapped and murdered in Mexico (his body is discovered March 5).
February 10 – Nelson Mandela rejects an offer of freedom from the South African government.
February 12 – Rafael Addiego Bruno is sworn in as interim President of Uruguay.
February 14 – CNN reporter Jeremy Levin is freed from captivity in Lebanon.[1]
February 16 – Israel begins withdrawing troops from Lebanon.
February 19
William J. Schroeder becomes the first artificial heart patient to leave hospital.
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.
The first episode of the long-running British soap opera EastEnders is broadcast on BBC One.
February 20 – Minolta releases the Maxxum 7000, the world's first autofocus single-lens reflex camera.
February 28 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army carries out a mortar attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary police station at Newry, killing 9 officers in 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 – An 8.0 on the Richter magnitude scale earthquake hits Santiago and Valparaíso, Chile, leaving 177 dead, 2,575 hurt, 142,489 destroyed houses and about a million people homeless.
March 4 – The United States Food and Drug Administration approves a blood test for AIDS, used since then to screen all blood donations in the United States.
March 8 – A Beirut car bomb, planted in an attempt to assassinate Islamic cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, kills more than 80 people, injuring 200.
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 14 – Five lionesses at the Singapore Zoo are put on birth control after the lion population increases from 2 to 16.
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 will become Brazil's first civilian president in 21 years, upon Neves' death on April 21.
March 16 – Associated Press reporter Terry Anderson is taken hostage in Beirut (he is released on December 4, 1991).
March 17 – Expo '85, a World's Fair, is held in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan, until September 16.
March 21 – Canadian paraplegic athlete and activist Rick Hansen sets out on his 40,000 km, 26 month Man in Motion tour which raises $26M for spinal cord research and quality of life initiatives.
March 23 – OCAM is dissolved.
March 24 – United States Army military intelligence officer Arthur D. Nicholson is shot by Soviet military sergeant Aleksandr Ryabtsev at a Soviet military base in Ludwigslust, East Germany.
March 25 – The 57th Academy Awards are held at in Los Angeles with Amadeus winning Best Picture.
March 31 – WrestleMania debuts at Madison Square Garden.
April
April 1
Two Japanese government-owned corporations, Nippon 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.
Eighth seeded Villanova defeats national powerhouse Georgetown 66–64 to win the first 64 team field NCAA Tournament in Lexington, Kentucky.
April 11 – The USS Coral Sea collides with the Ecuadorian tanker ship Napo off the coast of Cuba.
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 of the Torrejon Air Force Base, causes 18 dead (all Spaniards) and 82 injured.
April 15 – South Africa ends its ban on interracial marriages.
April 19 – The Soviet Union performs a nuclear test in eastern Kazakhstan.
April 21 – Brazilian President Tancredo Neves dies, he is succeeded by Vice President José Sarney. The Vice President post is left vacant until 1990.
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 3 months).
April 28 – The Australian Nuclear Disarmament Party (NDP) splits.
May
May 4 – The 30th Eurovision Song Contest takes place in Gothenburg, Sweden. The winning song is La det swinge sung by Bobbysocks! (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 11
The FBI brings charges against the suspected heads of the 5 Mafia families in New York City.
Fire engulfs a wooden stand at the Valley Parade stadium in Bradford, England, during a football match, killing 56.
May 13
Philadelphia Mayor Wilson Goode orders police to storm the radical group MOVE's 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.
The National Assembly of Kuwait grants women the right to vote. The right is revoked in 1999 and re-instated in 2005.
May 15
An explosive device sent by the Unabomber injures John Hauser at University of California, Berkeley.
Argentinian President Raúl Alfonsín terminates Argentinian administration of the Falkland Islands but does not relinquish the Argentinian claim over the islands.
May 16 – Scientists of the British Antarctic Survey announce discovery of the ozone hole.[2][3][4]
May 19 – John Anthony Walker Jr. is arrested by the FBI for passing classified Naval communications to the Soviet Union.
May 23 – Thomas Patrick Cavanaugh 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 – Heysel Stadium disaster: 38 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-one tornadoes hit Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Ontario, killing 77.
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 13 – In Auburn, Washington, police defuse a Unabomber bomb sent to Boeing.
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.
The Schengen Agreement is signed between certain member states of the European Economic Community, creating the Schengen Area, a bloc of (at this time) 5 states with no internal border controls.
June 15 – Studio Ghibli, an animation studio, is founded in Tokyo.
June 17 – John Hendricks launches the Discovery Channel in the United States.
June 23 – Air India Flight 182, a Boeing 747, is blown up by a terrorist bomb 31,000 feet (9,500 m) 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 25 – Irish police foil a Provisional Irish Republican Army–sponsored 'mainland bombing campaign' which targeted luxury vacation resorts.
June 27 – U.S. Route 66 is officially decommissioned.
July
Live Aid at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia
July 1 – The Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons enters into force.
July 3 – Back to the Future opens in American theatres and ends up being the highest grossing film of 1985 in the United States and the first film in the successful franchise.
July 4 – Ruth Lawrence, 13, 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 Rainbow Warrior is bombed and sunk in Auckland Harbour by French DGSE agents.
July 13
Live Aid pop concerts in London and Philadelphia raise over £50 million for famine relief in Ethiopia.
U.S. Vice President George H. W. Bush serves as Acting President for 8 hours, while President Ronald Reagan undergoes colon cancer surgery.
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 Challenger.
The Val di Stava Dam in Italy collapses.
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.
July 23 – Commodore launches the Amiga personal computer at the Lincoln Center in New York.
July 24 – The Black Cauldron makes its theatrical debut.
July 31 – Liberia recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
August
August 2 – Delta Air Lines Flight 191 crashes near 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 crashes in Japan, killing 520 people (the worst single-aircraft disaster in history).
August 14 – The Accomarca massacre takes place in Ayacucho, Peru.
August 15 – Three miners die in an accident at a coal mine in southeastern Kentucky.[5]
August 20 - Iran–Contra affair: The first arms, 96 BGM-71 TOWs, are sent to Iran in exchange for hostages in Lebanon and profits for the Nicaraguan Contras. The public does not know about the arms sale.
August 22 – British Airtours Flight 28M: The 737's left engine catches fire while on its take off roll, 55 people are killed while trying to evacuate the aircraft.
August 25 – Samantha Smith, 13, "Goodwill Ambassador" between the Soviet Union and the United States for writing a letter to Yuri Andropov about nuclear war, and eventually visiting the Soviet Union at Andropov's request, dies in the Bar Harbor Airlines Flight 1808 plane crash.
August 28 - The first smoking ban banning smoking in restaurants in the United States is passed in Aspen, Colorado.[6]
August 30 – Éva Risztov, Hungarian Olympic Champion swimmer
August 31 – Richard Ramirez, the serial killer known as the Night Stalker, is captured in Los Angeles.
September
September 1 – The wreck of the RMS Titanic (1912) in the North Atlantic is located by a joint American-French expedition led by Dr. Robert Ballard (WHOI) and Jean-Louis Michel (IFREMER) using side-scan sonar from RV Knorr.[7][8]
September 6 – Midwest Express Airlines Flight 105, a Douglas DC-9, crashes just after takeoff from Milwaukee, killing 31.
September 11 – Pete Rose becomes the all-time hit leader in Major League Baseball, with his 4,192nd hit at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati.
September 13
Super Mario Bros. is released for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Steve Jobs resigns from Apple Computer in order to found NeXT.[9]
September 19 – An 8.1 Richter scale earthquake strikes Mexico City. Around 10,000 people are killed, 30,000 injured, and 95,000 left homeless.
September 20 – The capital gains tax is introduced to Australia.[10][11]
September 22 – The Plaza Accord is signed by 5 nations.
September 23 – Italian crime reporter Giancarlo Siani is killed by Camorra.
September 28 – Brixton riots are sparked with the shooting of Dorothy 'Cherry' Groce by the Metropolitan Police in Brixton, an area of south London, England.
October
October 1 – The Israeli air force bombs PLO Headquarters near Tunis.
October 3 – The Space Shuttle Atlantis makes its maiden flight.
October 4 – The Free Software Foundation is founded in Massachusetts, USA.
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.
October 18 – The first Nintendo home video game console in United States is released as the Nintendo Entertainment System.
November
November 5 – In an all-English match, Mark Kaylor defeats Errol Christie to become the middleweight boxing champion, after the two brawl in front of the cameras at the weigh-in.
November 9 – In an all-Soviet match, 22-year-old Garry Kasparov defeats Anatoly Karpov to become the youngest-ever undisputed winner of the World Chess Championship.
November 12 – A total solar eclipse occurs over Antarctica at 14:11:22 UTC.
November 13 – Armero tragedy: The Nevado del Ruiz volcano erupts, killing an estimated 23,000 people, including 21,000 killed by lahars in the town of Armero, Colombia.
November 18 – The comic strip Calvin and Hobbes debuts in 35 newspapers in the United States.
November 19 – Cold War: In Geneva, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.
November 20 – Microsoft Corporation releases the first version of Windows, Windows 1.0.
November 23 – EgyptAir Flight 648 is hijacked by the Abu Nidal group and flown to Malta, where Egyptian commandos storm the plane; 60 are killed by gunfire and explosions.
November 25 – 1985 Aeroflot Antonov An-12 shoot-down: A Soviet Aeroflot Antonov An-12 cargo airplane, en route from Cuito Cuanavale to Luanda, is shot down by South African Special Forces and crashes approximately 43 km east of Menongue, the provincial center of the Cuando Cubango Province, Angola, killing 8 crew members and 13 passengers on board.
November 26 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan sells the rights to his autobiography to Random House for a record US$3 million.
November 29 – Gérard Hoarau, exiled political leader from the Seychelles, is assassinated in London.
December
December 1
The Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (Organización de Estados Iberoamericanos para la Educación la Ciencia y la Cultura) (OEI) is created.
The Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable are released for sale to the public.
December 8 – The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is established.
December 12 – Arrow Air Flight 1285, a Douglas DC-8, crashes after takeoff from 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 crime family.
December 20 - Pope John Paul II announces the instituting of World Youth Day for Catholic youths.
December 24 – Right-wing extremist David Lewis Rice murders civil rights attorney Charles Goldmark as well as Goldmark's wife and two children in Seattle. Rice suspects the family of being Jewish and Communist and claims his dedication to the Christian Identity movement drove him to the crime.
December 27
Rome and Vienna airport attacks: Abu Nidal terrorists open fire in the airports of Rome and Vienna, leaving 18 dead and 120 injured.
American naturalist Dian Fossey is found murdered in Rwanda.
December 31 - American singer, songwriter and actor Ricky Nelson dies in a plane crash in De Kalb, Texas.
Date unknown
The Australian state of Victoria celebrates its 150th anniversary.
Harold Kroto, Robert Curl and Richard Smalley discover C60, soon followed by their discovery of fullerenes.
Western Sahara is admitted to the Organization of African Unity; Morocco, which claims Western Sahara, leaves in protest.
Solarquest, the space age real estate game, is first published by Golden.
ATI Technologies is founded.
The Tommy Hilfiger brand is established.
DNA is first used in a criminal case.[12]
Multiple cases of espionage in the United States prompt the media to label this "The Year of the Spy".
Africa has a population growth of 3.2 percent per year.
The Asian tiger mosquito, an invasive species, is first found in Houston, Texas.
The Famine in Ethiopia continues; USA for Africa ("We Are the World") and Live Aid raise funds for famine relief.
The Fall of Communism begins with resistance gaining victory in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Over the next six years, other countries begin renouncing communism, ending with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
January 1
The Internet's Domain Name System is created.
Greenland is withdrawn from the European Economic Community.
January 10 – Kenya recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
January 15 – Tancredo Neves is elected president of Brazil by the Congress, ending the 21-year military rule.
January 17 – British Telecom announces it is going to phase out its famous red telephone boxes.
January 20 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan is privately sworn in for a second term in office (publicly sworn in, January 21).
January 27 – The Economic Cooperation Organization is (ECO) formed.
January 28 – In Hollywood, the charity single "We Are the World" is recorded by USA for Africa.
February
February 4 - The border between Gibraltar and Spain reopens 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 Enrique Camarena is kidnapped and murdered in Mexico (his body is discovered March 5).
February 10 – Nelson Mandela rejects an offer of freedom from the South African government.
February 12 – Rafael Addiego Bruno is sworn in as interim President of Uruguay.
February 14 – CNN reporter Jeremy Levin is freed from captivity in Lebanon.[1]
February 16 – Israel begins withdrawing troops from Lebanon.
February 19
William J. Schroeder becomes the first artificial heart patient to leave hospital.
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.
The first episode of the long-running British soap opera EastEnders is broadcast on BBC One.
February 20 – Minolta releases the Maxxum 7000, the world's first autofocus single-lens reflex camera.
February 28 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army carries out a mortar attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary police station at Newry, killing 9 officers in 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 – An 8.0 on the Richter magnitude scale earthquake hits Santiago and Valparaíso, Chile, leaving 177 dead, 2,575 hurt, 142,489 destroyed houses and about a million people homeless.
March 4 – The United States Food and Drug Administration approves a blood test for AIDS, used since then to screen all blood donations in the United States.
March 8 – A Beirut car bomb, planted in an attempt to assassinate Islamic cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, kills more than 80 people, injuring 200.
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 14 – Five lionesses at the Singapore Zoo are put on birth control after the lion population increases from 2 to 16.
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 will become Brazil's first civilian president in 21 years, upon Neves' death on April 21.
March 16 – Associated Press reporter Terry Anderson is taken hostage in Beirut (he is released on December 4, 1991).
March 17 – Expo '85, a World's Fair, is held in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan, until September 16.
March 21 – Canadian paraplegic athlete and activist Rick Hansen sets out on his 40,000 km, 26 month Man in Motion tour which raises $26M for spinal cord research and quality of life initiatives.
March 23 – OCAM is dissolved.
March 24 – United States Army military intelligence officer Arthur D. Nicholson is shot by Soviet military sergeant Aleksandr Ryabtsev at a Soviet military base in Ludwigslust, East Germany.
March 25 – The 57th Academy Awards are held at in Los Angeles with Amadeus winning Best Picture.
March 31 – WrestleMania debuts at Madison Square Garden.
April
April 1
Two Japanese government-owned corporations, Nippon 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.
Eighth seeded Villanova defeats national powerhouse Georgetown 66–64 to win the first 64 team field NCAA Tournament in Lexington, Kentucky.
April 11 – The USS Coral Sea collides with the Ecuadorian tanker ship Napo off the coast of Cuba.
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 of the Torrejon Air Force Base, causes 18 dead (all Spaniards) and 82 injured.
April 15 – South Africa ends its ban on interracial marriages.
April 19 – The Soviet Union performs a nuclear test in eastern Kazakhstan.
April 21 – Brazilian President Tancredo Neves dies, he is succeeded by Vice President José Sarney. The Vice President post is left vacant until 1990.
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 3 months).
April 28 – The Australian Nuclear Disarmament Party (NDP) splits.
May
May 4 – The 30th Eurovision Song Contest takes place in Gothenburg, Sweden. The winning song is La det swinge sung by Bobbysocks! (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 11
The FBI brings charges against the suspected heads of the 5 Mafia families in New York City.
Fire engulfs a wooden stand at the Valley Parade stadium in Bradford, England, during a football match, killing 56.
May 13
Philadelphia Mayor Wilson Goode orders police to storm the radical group MOVE's 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.
The National Assembly of Kuwait grants women the right to vote. The right is revoked in 1999 and re-instated in 2005.
May 15
An explosive device sent by the Unabomber injures John Hauser at University of California, Berkeley.
Argentinian President Raúl Alfonsín terminates Argentinian administration of the Falkland Islands but does not relinquish the Argentinian claim over the islands.
May 16 – Scientists of the British Antarctic Survey announce discovery of the ozone hole.[2][3][4]
May 19 – John Anthony Walker Jr. is arrested by the FBI for passing classified Naval communications to the Soviet Union.
May 23 – Thomas Patrick Cavanaugh 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 – Heysel Stadium disaster: 38 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-one tornadoes hit Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Ontario, killing 77.
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 13 – In Auburn, Washington, police defuse a Unabomber bomb sent to Boeing.
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.
The Schengen Agreement is signed between certain member states of the European Economic Community, creating the Schengen Area, a bloc of (at this time) 5 states with no internal border controls.
June 15 – Studio Ghibli, an animation studio, is founded in Tokyo.
June 17 – John Hendricks launches the Discovery Channel in the United States.
June 23 – Air India Flight 182, a Boeing 747, is blown up by a terrorist bomb 31,000 feet (9,500 m) 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 25 – Irish police foil a Provisional Irish Republican Army–sponsored 'mainland bombing campaign' which targeted luxury vacation resorts.
June 27 – U.S. Route 66 is officially decommissioned.
July
Live Aid at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia
July 1 – The Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons enters into force.
July 3 – Back to the Future opens in American theatres and ends up being the highest grossing film of 1985 in the United States and the first film in the successful franchise.
July 4 – Ruth Lawrence, 13, 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 Rainbow Warrior is bombed and sunk in Auckland Harbour by French DGSE agents.
July 13
Live Aid pop concerts in London and Philadelphia raise over £50 million for famine relief in Ethiopia.
U.S. Vice President George H. W. Bush serves as Acting President for 8 hours, while President Ronald Reagan undergoes colon cancer surgery.
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 Challenger.
The Val di Stava Dam in Italy collapses.
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.
July 23 – Commodore launches the Amiga personal computer at the Lincoln Center in New York.
July 24 – The Black Cauldron makes its theatrical debut.
July 31 – Liberia recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
August
August 2 – Delta Air Lines Flight 191 crashes near 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 crashes in Japan, killing 520 people (the worst single-aircraft disaster in history).
August 14 – The Accomarca massacre takes place in Ayacucho, Peru.
August 15 – Three miners die in an accident at a coal mine in southeastern Kentucky.[5]
August 20 - Iran–Contra affair: The first arms, 96 BGM-71 TOWs, are sent to Iran in exchange for hostages in Lebanon and profits for the Nicaraguan Contras. The public does not know about the arms sale.
August 22 – British Airtours Flight 28M: The 737's left engine catches fire while on its take off roll, 55 people are killed while trying to evacuate the aircraft.
August 25 – Samantha Smith, 13, "Goodwill Ambassador" between the Soviet Union and the United States for writing a letter to Yuri Andropov about nuclear war, and eventually visiting the Soviet Union at Andropov's request, dies in the Bar Harbor Airlines Flight 1808 plane crash.
August 28 - The first smoking ban banning smoking in restaurants in the United States is passed in Aspen, Colorado.[6]
August 30 – Éva Risztov, Hungarian Olympic Champion swimmer
August 31 – Richard Ramirez, the serial killer known as the Night Stalker, is captured in Los Angeles.
September
September 1 – The wreck of the RMS Titanic (1912) in the North Atlantic is located by a joint American-French expedition led by Dr. Robert Ballard (WHOI) and Jean-Louis Michel (IFREMER) using side-scan sonar from RV Knorr.[7][8]
September 6 – Midwest Express Airlines Flight 105, a Douglas DC-9, crashes just after takeoff from Milwaukee, killing 31.
September 11 – Pete Rose becomes the all-time hit leader in Major League Baseball, with his 4,192nd hit at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati.
September 13
Super Mario Bros. is released for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Steve Jobs resigns from Apple Computer in order to found NeXT.[9]
September 19 – An 8.1 Richter scale earthquake strikes Mexico City. Around 10,000 people are killed, 30,000 injured, and 95,000 left homeless.
September 20 – The capital gains tax is introduced to Australia.[10][11]
September 22 – The Plaza Accord is signed by 5 nations.
September 23 – Italian crime reporter Giancarlo Siani is killed by Camorra.
September 28 – Brixton riots are sparked with the shooting of Dorothy 'Cherry' Groce by the Metropolitan Police in Brixton, an area of south London, England.
October
October 1 – The Israeli air force bombs PLO Headquarters near Tunis.
October 3 – The Space Shuttle Atlantis makes its maiden flight.
October 4 – The Free Software Foundation is founded in Massachusetts, USA.
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.
October 18 – The first Nintendo home video game console in United States is released as the Nintendo Entertainment System.
November
November 5 – In an all-English match, Mark Kaylor defeats Errol Christie to become the middleweight boxing champion, after the two brawl in front of the cameras at the weigh-in.
November 9 – In an all-Soviet match, 22-year-old Garry Kasparov defeats Anatoly Karpov to become the youngest-ever undisputed winner of the World Chess Championship.
November 12 – A total solar eclipse occurs over Antarctica at 14:11:22 UTC.
November 13 – Armero tragedy: The Nevado del Ruiz volcano erupts, killing an estimated 23,000 people, including 21,000 killed by lahars in the town of Armero, Colombia.
November 18 – The comic strip Calvin and Hobbes debuts in 35 newspapers in the United States.
November 19 – Cold War: In Geneva, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.
November 20 – Microsoft Corporation releases the first version of Windows, Windows 1.0.
November 23 – EgyptAir Flight 648 is hijacked by the Abu Nidal group and flown to Malta, where Egyptian commandos storm the plane; 60 are killed by gunfire and explosions.
November 25 – 1985 Aeroflot Antonov An-12 shoot-down: A Soviet Aeroflot Antonov An-12 cargo airplane, en route from Cuito Cuanavale to Luanda, is shot down by South African Special Forces and crashes approximately 43 km east of Menongue, the provincial center of the Cuando Cubango Province, Angola, killing 8 crew members and 13 passengers on board.
November 26 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan sells the rights to his autobiography to Random House for a record US$3 million.
November 29 – Gérard Hoarau, exiled political leader from the Seychelles, is assassinated in London.
December
December 1
The Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (Organización de Estados Iberoamericanos para la Educación la Ciencia y la Cultura) (OEI) is created.
The Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable are released for sale to the public.
December 8 – The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is established.
December 12 – Arrow Air Flight 1285, a Douglas DC-8, crashes after takeoff from 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 crime family.
December 20 - Pope John Paul II announces the instituting of World Youth Day for Catholic youths.
December 24 – Right-wing extremist David Lewis Rice murders civil rights attorney Charles Goldmark as well as Goldmark's wife and two children in Seattle. Rice suspects the family of being Jewish and Communist and claims his dedication to the Christian Identity movement drove him to the crime.
December 27
Rome and Vienna airport attacks: Abu Nidal terrorists open fire in the airports of Rome and Vienna, leaving 18 dead and 120 injured.
American naturalist Dian Fossey is found murdered in Rwanda.
December 31 - American singer, songwriter and actor Ricky Nelson dies in a plane crash in De Kalb, Texas.
Date unknown
The Australian state of Victoria celebrates its 150th anniversary.
Harold Kroto, Robert Curl and Richard Smalley discover C60, soon followed by their discovery of fullerenes.
Western Sahara is admitted to the Organization of African Unity; Morocco, which claims Western Sahara, leaves in protest.
Solarquest, the space age real estate game, is first published by Golden.
ATI Technologies is founded.
The Tommy Hilfiger brand is established.
DNA is first used in a criminal case.[12]
Multiple cases of espionage in the United States prompt the media to label this "The Year of the Spy".
Africa has a population growth of 3.2 percent per year.
The Asian tiger mosquito, an invasive species, is first found in Houston, Texas.
The Famine in Ethiopia continues; USA for Africa ("We Are the World") and Live Aid raise funds for famine relief.
The Fall of Communism begins with resistance gaining victory in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Over the next six years, other countries begin renouncing communism, ending with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.