1985 in the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

←

Flag of the United States.svg
 1985
in
the United States

→

Decades:
  • 1960s
  • 1970s
  • 1980s
  • 1990s
  • 2000s
See also:

Events from the year 1985 in the United States.

Incumbents[]

Federal government[]

  • President: Ronald Reagan (R-California)
  • Vice President: George H. W. Bush (R-Texas)
  • Chief Justice: Warren E. Burger (Minnesota)
  • Speaker of the House of Representatives: Tip O'Neill (D-Massachusetts)
  • Senate Majority Leader: Howard Baker (R-Tennessee) (until January 3), Bob Dole (R-Kansas) (starting January 3)
  • Congress: 98th (until January 3), 99th (starting January 3)

Events[]

January[]

January 20: Ronald Reagan, the President of the United States, begins his second term
  • January 20
    • President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H. W. Bush are privately sworn in for a second term in office (publicly sworn in, January 21).
    • Super Bowl XIX: The San Francisco 49ers defeat the Miami Dolphins 38–16 at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, California.
  • January 28 – In Hollywood, California, the charity single "We Are the World" is recorded by USA for Africa. Like the enormously successful "Do They Know It's Christmas?" that was recorded by Band Aid in the UK two months prior, the single raises money to combat the ongoing famine in Ethiopia. The American act consists of high-profile performers, including Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Tina Turner, Cyndi Lauper and Diana Ross.

February[]

  • February 5 – Australia cancels its involvement in United States-led MX missile tests.
  • February 9 – U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena is kidnapped and murdered in Mexico (his body is discovered on March 5).
  • February 13 – Bobby Knight throws a chair across a basketball court.
  • February 14
    • CNN reporter Jeremy Levin is freed from captivity in Lebanon.[1]
    • 21-year-old female singer Whitney Houston releases her debut album – Whitney Houston.[2]

March[]

  • March 1 – The GNU Manifesto by Richard Stallman is published for the first time.
  • March 4 – The Food and Drug Administration approves a blood test for AIDS, used since then to screen all blood donations in the United States.
  • March 6 – Mike Tyson makes his professional debut in Albany, New York, a match which he wins by a first-round knockout.
  • March 8 – A car bomb planted in Beirut by CIA mercenaries attempts to kill Islamic cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah. He survives, but the bomb kills more than 80 people and injures 200.
  • March 16 – Associated Press newsman Terry Anderson is taken hostage in Beirut (he is eventually released on December 4, 1991).
  • March 25 – The 57th Academy Awards, hosted by Jack Lemmon, are held at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, with Miloš Forman's Amadeus winning Best Picture and Best Director (Forman's second win), along with six other awards out of 11 nominations. The film is tied in nominations with David Lean's A Passage to India.
  • March 31 – WrestleMania debuts at Madison Square Garden.

April[]

  • The National Archives and Records Administration is established as an independent federal agency.[3]
  • April 1 – Eighth-seeded Villanova defeats national powerhouse Georgetown, 66–64, to win the first 64-team field NCAA Tournament in Lexington, Kentucky.
  • April 7 – National Geographic Explorer debuts on Nickelodeon.
  • April 11 – The USS Coral Sea collides with the Ecuadorian tanker ship Napo off the coast of Cuba.
  • April 12 – 1985 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 19 – A four-day siege of white supremacist group The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord begins in Arkansas.
  • April 23 – Coca-Cola changes its recipe and releases New Coke. The response is overwhelmingly negative, and the original formula is back on the market in less than three months.

May[]

  • May 5 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan joins West 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 the suspected heads of the five Mafia families in New York City.
  • May 13 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Mayor Wilson Goode orders police to storm the radical black American resistance group MOVE's headquarters to end a stand-off. The police drop an explosive device into the headquarters, killing eleven members of MOVE 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 19 – John Anthony Walker Jr., is arrested by the FBI for passing classified Naval communications onto the Soviets.
  • May 31 – Forty-one tornadoes hit in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Ontario, killing 76 people.

June[]

  • June 9 – Los Angeles Lakers win the NBA championship, defeating the Boston Celtics.
  • June 13 – In Auburn, Washington, police defuse a Unabomber bomb sent to Boeing.[4]
  • 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.[5]
  • June 17 – John Hendricks launches the Discovery Channel in the United States.[6]
  • June 20 – NeXT is founded by Steve Jobs after he resigns from Apple Computer.
  • 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 – A Walt Disney World Monorail System train catches fire in Epcot around 9:00 p.m, due to friction caused by a flat tire.
  • June 27 – U.S. Route 66 is officially decommissioned.

July[]

July 13: Live Aid in Philadelphia
  • July 1
    • Nick at Nite, a nighttime program service with an emphasis on classic television reruns, is launched in the United States, being broadcast on the same channel as Nickelodeon.
    • A&E, which previously shared Nickelodeon's channel, begins broadcasting as its own 24-hour cable channel in January of that year on a separate satellite transponder.
  • July 3 – Back to the Future opens in American theaters and ends up being the highest-grossing film of 1985 in the United States, and the first film in the successful franchise.
  • July 13
    • Live Aid pop concerts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and London raise over £50,000,000 for famine relief in Ethiopia. The English rock band Queen performs at Wembley Stadium in London for over 20 minutes. Queen's performance at the event was recreated in the 2018 film Bohemian Rhapsody.
    • Vice President George H. W. Bush serves as acting president for eight hours, while President Ronald W. Reagan undergoes colon cancer surgery under anesthesia.
  • July 19 – Vice President George H. W. Bush announces that New Hampshire teacher Christa McAuliffe will become the first school teacher to ride aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger.
  • July 20 – The main ship wreck site of the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha (which sank in 1622) is found forty miles off the coast of Key West, Florida by treasure hunters who begin to excavate $400,000,000 in coins and silver.
  • July 24
    • Commodore launches the Amiga personal computer at the Lincoln Center in New York City.
    • Walt Disney Feature Animation's 25th feature film, The Black Cauldron, is released. Considered one of the studio's darkest releases, it receives mixed reviews and results in a large revenue loss for Disney, putting the future of its animation department in jeopardy.

August[]

  • August 2 – Delta Air Lines Flight 191 crashes near Dallas, Texas, killing 137 people.
  • August 4 – Major League Baseball player Rod Carew of the California Angels becomes the sixteenth player to achieve 3,000 hits in a career.
  • August 25 – Samantha Smith, "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. She was 13 years old.
  • August 26 – Ryan White, who was expelled from Western High School in Indiana, is allowed to attend his first day of classes via telephone.
  • August 31 – Richard Ramirez, the serial killer known as the Night Stalker, is captured in Los Angeles.

September[]

October[]

  • October 4 – The Free Software Foundation is founded in Massachusetts.
  • October 7
    • The cruise ship Achille Lauro is hijacked in the Mediterranean Sea by four heavily armed Palestinian terrorists. One passenger, American Leon Klinghoffer, is killed.
    • The Mameyes landslide in Puerto Rico kills close to 300 people in the worst ever landslide in North American history.
  • October 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 Hofmann. The ensuing police investigation leads to the arrest of Hofmann for the two murders.
  • October 18 – The Nintendo Entertainment System is released in U.S. stores.
  • October 27 – The Kansas City Royals defeat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4 games to 3, to win their first World Series Title.

November[]

  • November 18 – The comic strip Calvin and Hobbes debuts in 35 newspapers.
  • 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 26 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan sells the rights to his autobiography to Random House for a record US$3,000,000.

December[]

  • December 1 – The Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable are released for sale to the public.
  • December 12 – Arrow Air Flight 1285, a Douglas 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 crime family.
  • 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 suspected the family of being both Jewish and Communist, and claimed his dedication to the Christian Identity movement drove him to the crime.
  • December 27 – American naturalist Dian Fossey is found murdered in Rwanda.
  • December 31 – The last issue of The Columbus Citizen-Journal is circulated.

Undated[]

  • "The Year of the Spy", name given by media to 1985 because of a large number of foreign spies arrested in the United States.
  • The Tommy Hilfiger brand is established.
  • The Asian tiger mosquito, an invasive species, is first found in Houston, Texas.

Ongoing[]

Births[]

  • January 1
    • Juliana Harkavy, actress
    • Fred the Godson, rapper and DJ (died 2020)
  • January 2 – Greg Toler, American football cornerback
  • January 3
    • Nicole Beharie, actress and singer
    • John David Booty, American football quarterback, USC
  • January 4 – Al Jefferson, basketball player
  • January 8 – Rachael Lampa, Christian singer
  • January 11
    • Lucy Knisley, comic artist and musician
    • Aja Naomi King, actress[7]
  • January 12 – Issa Rae, actress
  • January 15 – Brandon Mebane, American football player
  • January 16
    • Ash Christian, actor and film director and producer (died 2020)
    • Joe Flacco, American football player
    • Renée Felice Smith, actress
  • January 18 – Matt Hobby, actor and comedian
  • January 25
  • January 26 – Edwin Hodge, actor
  • January 29 – Mikey Hachey, bass player
  • January 30 – Trae Williams, American football player
  • February 1 – Alex Clark, Youtuber/animator
  • February 2 – Fontel Mines, American football player
  • February 4 – Bug Hall, actor
  • February 5 – Laurence Maroney, American football player
  • February 6
    • Kris Humphries, basketball player
    • Crystal Reed, actress[8]
  • February 7
    • Tina Majorino, film and television actress
    • Deborah Ann Woll, actress
  • February 8
    • Jeremy Davis, bassist (Paramore)
    • Bob Morris, singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Hush Sound)
    • Brian Randle, basketball player and coach[9]
  • February 11 – William Beckett, singer and songwriter
  • February 14 – Jake Lacy, actor
  • February 16 – Stacy Lewis, golfer[10]
  • February 17 – Zelda Harris, actress
  • February 19
    • Haylie Duff, actress, singer and songwriter
    • Arielle Kebbel, actress
  • February 22
  • February 20 – TJ Kirk, YouTube personality
  • February 25 – Joakim Noah, basketball player[11]
  • February 26 – Shiloh Fernandez, actor
  • February 27 – Nicole Linkletter, model
  • March 1 – Cole Sanchez, voice actor and artist
  • March 2
    • Reggie Bush, American football player
    • Robert Iler, actor
  • March 3 – Toby Turner, Internet personality, actor, comedian and musician
  • March 6 – Chad Jackson, American football player
  • March 7 – Guy Benson, columnist
  • March 10 – Cooper Andrews, actor
  • March 15 – Eva Amurri, actress
  • March 21
    • Ryan Callahan, hockey player
    • Adrian Peterson, American football player
    • Sonequa Martin-Green, actress and producer
  • March 22
    • Mike Jenkins, American football player
    • Justin Masterson, baseball player
    • James Wolk, actor
  • March 24 – Jeremy James Kissner, actor
  • March 26
    • Matt Grevers, Olympic swimmer[12]
    • Jonathan Groff, actor and singer[13]
    • Francesca Marie Smith, actress, voice actress and writer
  • March 27 – Blake McIver Ewing, singer-songwriter, actor, model and pianist
  • March 28 – Mark Melancon, baseball pitcher
  • March 31
  • April 1
  • April 4 – Todrick Hall, singer, songwriter, actor, director, choreographer and YouTuber
  • April 5 – Lastings Milledge, baseball player
  • April 6 – Sinqua Walls, basketball player and actor
  • April 9 – David Robertson, baseball player
  • April 12 – Brennan Boesch, baseball player
  • April 15
  • April 16 – Nate Diaz, mixed martial artist
  • April 17 – Rooney Mara, actress
  • April 20 – Curt Hawkins, wrestler
  • April 26 – Bre Scullark, fashion model and actress
  • April 28 – Brandon Baker, actor
  • May 2 – Sarah Hughes, figure skater[15]
  • May 4 – Bo McCalebb, American-born Macedonian basketball player
  • May 7 – Andrew Carroll, American ice hockey player (died 2018)
  • May 8 – Usama Young, American football player
  • May 9
    • Audrina Patridge, television personality and actress
    • Chris Zylka, actor and model[16]
  • May 10 – Odette Annable, actress[17]
  • May 12 – Tally Hall, soccer player
  • May 17 – Matt Ryan, American football player
  • May 21 – Cameron Van Hoy, actor, producer and writer
  • May 22 – Chris Salvatore, actor, singer-songwriter, model, and gay rights activist[18]
  • May 24 – John Vigilante, ice hockey player and coach (died 2018)
  • May 28
  • May 29 – Blake Foster, actor and martial artist
  • May 30
    • Sam Gifaldi, child actor
    • Turk McBride, National Football League player
  • May 31 – Navene Koperweis, progressive metal musician
  • June 1 – Ari Herstand, singer-songwriter
  • June 2 – Maggie Thrash, graphic novelist and writer
  • June 6
    • Abbie Cobb, actress and author
    • Chris Henry, American football player
  • June 9 – Sebastian Telfair, basketball player
  • June 10
  • June 11 – Chris Trousdale, actor and recording artist (died 2020)
  • June 12
    • Dave Franco, television and film actor
    • Blake Ross, software developer
    • Kendra Wilkinson, model, actress, and author[19]
    • Chris Young, singer-songwriter and guitarist
  • June 20
  • June 21
    • Kris Allen, 8th American Idol winner, rock musician
    • Lana Del Rey, pop musician[20]
  • June 23 – Marcel Reece, American football player
  • June 24 – Justin Hires, actor and stand-up comedian
  • June 25
    • Annaleigh Ashford, actress and singer
    • Daniel Bard, American former baseball pitcher
  • June 29 – Steven Hauschka, American football player
  • June 30
    • Michael Phelps, swimmer
    • Cody Rhodes, wrestler
  • June 24 – Jandy Nelson, writer
  • June 25 – Daniel Bard, baseball player
  • June 27 – Martin Sensmeier, Alaska Native actor
  • June 28 – Cory Blair, rugby player
  • July 2 – Ashley Tisdale, actress, singer and producer
  • July 5 – Megan Rapinoe, soccer player[21]
  • July 12
  • July 16 – Rosa Salazar, actress
  • July 30 – Mary Wiseman, actress
  • August 9
  • August 15 – Emily Kinney, actress, singer and songwriter
  • August 16
    • Agnes Bruckner, actress
    • Arden Cho, actress, singer and model[22]
    • Cristin Milioti, actress and singer[23]
  • August 18 – Brooke Harman, actress
  • August 19
  • August 20 – Brant Daugherty, actor
  • August 21 – Jake Pitts, singer-songwriter (Black Veil Brides)
  • August 25 – Wynter Gordon, pop/dance singer-songwriter
  • August 27 –
    • Alexandra Nechita, artist
    • Kayla Ewell, actress
    • Sean Foreman, singer, songwriter and performer; member of electro hop group 3OH!3
  • August 28 – Ashlyne Huff, singer-songwriter and dancer
  • August 29
  • September 4 – Morgan Garrett, voice actress[24]
  • September 6
    • Lauren Lapkus, actress and comedian
    • Mitch Moreland, baseball player
  • September 7 – Alyssa Diaz, actress[25]
  • September 17 – Jon Walker, musician
  • September 23
  • October 1
    • Porcelain Black, industrial pop singer-songwriter
    • Sicily Sewell, actress
  • October 3 – Courtney Lee, basketball player
  • October 4 – Brad Bell, television producer, screenwriter, actor, musician, and comic book author
  • October 8
  • October 10 – Aaron Himelstein, actor
  • October 11 – Michelle Trachtenberg, actress, producer and singer
  • October 14
    • Daniel Clark, American-Canadian actor
    • Justin Forsett, American football player
  • October 25
    • John Robinson, actor
    • Christopher Sean, actor
  • October 28
    • Anthony Fantano, music critic
    • Troian Bellisario, actress
  • October 31 – Kether Donohue, actress and singer
  • November 2 – Josh Grelle, voice actor
  • November 4 – Victoria Leigh Soto, teacher (died 2012)[29]
  • November 6 – Shayne Lamas, reality television personality and actress[30]
  • November 10 – Giovonnie Samuels, actress
  • November 12 – Arianny Celeste, model and actress
  • November 13
    • Michael Bennett, American football player
    • Kit Williamson, actor and filmmaker
  • November 15
  • November 23 – Mike Tolbert, American football player
  • November 25 – Dan Carpenter, American football player
  • November 30
    • Gia Crovatin, actress
    • Kaley Cuoco, actress
    • Chrissy Teigen, model
  • December 1
    • John Coughlin, pair skater (d. 2019)
    • Philip DeFranco, YouTube star and video blogger
    • Janelle Monáe, African-American R&B/soul musician
  • December 2 Brittany Spears, actress, singer and songwriter
  • December 3 – Amanda Seyfried, actress, singer and songwriter
  • December 5 – Frankie Muniz, actor, musician, writer, producer and racecar driver
  • December 8
  • December 10
    • Edmund Entin, American actor
    • Matt Forte, American football player
    • T. J. Hensick, ice hockey player
    • Meghan Linsey, American singer-songwriter
    • Raven-Symoné, actress, singer, and dancer[31]
  • December 11 – Samantha Steele, sportscaster
  • December 12
  • December 19
    • Shane Bitney Crone, filmmaker, writer, speaker, and advocate for LGBT rights
    • Christina Loukas, diver
  • December 21 – James Stewart Jr., motorcycle racer
  • December 26 – Beth Behrs, actress
  • December 27 – Halley Gross, screenwriter
  • December 28
    • Dan Amboyer, actor
    • Taryn Terrell, professional wrestler
  • December 29 – Alexa Ray Joel, singer, songwriter and pianist[32]
  • December 30 – Anna Wood, actress
  • December 31 – Jonathan Horton, gymnast

Deaths[]

See also: Deaths in 1985
  • January 7 – Ruth Godfrey, actress (born 1922)
  • January 13 – Carol Wayne, actress (born 1942)
  • January 19 – Eric Voegelin, German-American philosopher (born 1901)[33]
  • January 20 – Gillis William Long, politician (b. 1923)
  • February 21 – John G. Trump, electrical engineer, inventor, and physicist (b. 1907)
  • February 22 – Alexander Scourby, actor (born 1913)
  • March 13 – Annette Hanshaw, singer (b. 1901)
  • April 1 – Douglass Wallop, author and playwright (b. 1920)
  • April 8 – J. Fred Coots, songwriter (b. 1897)
  • April 22 – Paul H. Emmett, American chemical engineer (b. 1900)
  • April 23 – Kent Smith, American actor (b. 1907)
  • April 24 – Mildred W. Pelzer, American artist (b. 1889)
  • October 2 – Rock Hudson, actor (b. 1925)
  • October 10
    • Yul Brynner, Russian-born American actor (b. 1920)
    • Orson Welles, actor and director (born 1915)
  • October 25 – Blair Lee III, politician, Lieutenant Governor of Maryland (b. 1916)[34]
  • November 1
  • November 4 – Cus D'Amato legendary boxing trainer who was a mentor to hall of famer boxers Mike Tyson, Floyd Patterson and José Torres.
  • November 16
    • Stuart Chase, economist (b. 1888)
    • John Sparkman, United States Senator from Alabama from 1946 till 1979. (b. 1899)
  • November 25 – Ray Jablonski, American baseball player (b. 1926)

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Kifner, John (1985-02-15). "U.S. TV Reporter Free In Lebanon". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-10-15.
  2. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-07-17. Retrieved 2011-07-14.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. ^ "Milestones of the U.S. Archival Profession and the National Archives, 1800-2011". U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved 25 August 2016.
  4. ^ Miki Vohryzek-Bolden; Gayle Olson-Raymer; Jeffrey O. Whamond (2001). Domestic Terrorism and Incident Management: Issues and Tactics. Charles C Thomas. p. 198. ISBN 978-0-398-07225-4.
  5. ^ Robert Gearty (September 21, 2019), "Greek police arrest suspect in 1985 TWA Flight 847 hijacking", Fox News, retrieved September 21, 2019
  6. ^ United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Subcommittee on Communications (1989). Media Ownership: Diversity and Concentration : Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Communications of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, United States Senate, One Hundred First Congress, First Session ... June 14, 21, and 22, 1989. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 218.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. ^ "UPI Almanac for Saturday, Jan. 11, 2020". United Press International. January 11, 2020. Archived from the original on January 12, 2020. Retrieved February 3, 2020. …actor Aja Naomi King in 1985 (age 35)
  8. ^ Joan Rivers (Host), Crystal Reed (Guest) (August 2, 2013). Fashion Police (TV). E! Entertainment Television.
  9. ^ [