1985

1983–1989	UK [television]	The comedy Blackadder is shown on British television.Written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, it consists of four main series set in different historical periods – the Middle Ages, the Elizabethan Age, the Regency Period, and the First World War – and stars Rowan Atkinson as Edmund Blackadder.
1984–1994	UK [television]	Spitting Image, a programme satirizing contemporary politics using puppets created by Peter Fluck and Roger Law, is shown on British television.
1985	UK [television]	EastEnders, a soap opera set around Albert Square in the East End of London, England, starts on British television. Early stars include Wendy Richard, Leslie Grantham, Anita Dobson, and Susan Tully.
1985	world [women's rights]	Conservative Judaism accepts women as rabbis.
1985	France, Germany, UK, USA, USSR [statistics and demography]	Divorce rates (divorces per 1,000 of the population): France, 1.95; Germany, 2.10; Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 3.08; USA, 5.0; USSR, 3.36
1985	USA [statistics and demography]	Social statistics reveal that in 1985 US women spend an average of 27 hours a week doing housework; US men spend 12.
1985	world [statistics and demography]	The average literacy rate of women worldwide is 97%. In developing countries, however, only 55% of women are literate.
1985	UK [Protestantism]	The General Synod of the Church of England approves by a large majority the ordination of women as deacons.
1985	England [chemistry]	English chemist Harold Walter Kroto and US chemists Robert Floyd Curl and Richard Erret Smalley discover fullerenes.
1985	USA [computing]	US firm Microsoft develops Windows for the IBM PC.
1985	Canada [fiction]	The Canadian writer Margaret Atwood publishes her novel The Handmaid's Tale.
1985	UK [health and medicine]	An epidemic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is reported in beef cattle in Britain; it is later traced to cattle feed containing sheep carcasses infected with scrapie; in following years there are fears that beef consumption could lead to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans.
1985	USA [information technology]	The US Bell Laboratories develops an optical fibre capable of simultaneously sending 300,000 telephone conversations or 200 high-resolution television channels.
1985	USA [everyday life]	Pictures of missing children first begin to be shown on milk cartons in the USA.
1985	UK [musicals]	The musical Les Misérables is first performed in English, at the Palace Theatre in London, England. The music is by Claude-Michel Schönberg and the lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer and Alain Boubil. The original French version was first performed in Paris, France in 1980.
1985	USA [music]	Demand for CDs and CD players exceeds supply in the USA; manufacturers predict the decline of the LP record.
1985	USA [popular music]	The Parents' Music Resource Center, formed by Tipper Gore and Susan Baker in the USA, moves to make recording companies print warnings on records with explicit lyrics.
1 January 1985	UK [telephone services]	Racal-Vodaphone introduces the first mobile phones in Britain.
23 January 1985	UK [television]	The proceedings of the House of Lords are televised for first time in Britain.
25 January 1985	South Africa [political events]	The South African president P W Botha opens the country's new three-chamber parliament for whites, Indians, and coloureds.
5 February 1985	Spain [political events]	Spain reopens its frontier with Gibraltar, ending the 16-year-long siege imposed by General Francisco Franco on the British territory.
10 February 1985	South Africa [political events]	The imprisoned African National Congress (ANC) leader Nelson Mandela refuses the South African government's offer of freedom, conditional on his renunciation of violence as a means to political change in the country.
20 February 1985	Ireland [family planning]	The sale of contraceptives becomes legal in Eire.
March 1985	Antarctica [ecology]	Scientists at the British Antarctic Survey announce the discovery of thinning of the ozone layer, which worsens each year in the spring over Antarctica.
3 March 1985	UK [work and unemployment]	A National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) delegates' conference in Britain votes to return to work without a formal settlement of the pit strike.
11 March 1985	USSR [political events]	Mikhail Gorbachev is named first secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. He calls for more glasnost (‘openness’) in Soviet life and later pursues a policy of perestroika (‘reconstruction’).
15 March 1985	Brazil [political events]	Twenty-one years of military rule in Brazil ends after increasing popular discontent during 1984, with the election of Tancredo Neves as president. When he dies on 21 April, Vice President José Sarney is elected in his place.
8 June 1985	UK [popular music]	The British pop group Dire Straits releases the album Brothers in Arms. It becomes the first CD to sell 1 million copies.
15 June 1985	South Africa [political events]	South Africa appoints a multiracial administration for Namibia but retains control of the territory's foreign policy and defence.
29 June 1985	USA, England [popular music]	The most expensive piece of pop memorabilia to date is sold at Sotheby's in New York City when John Lennon's Rolls Royce fetches over £1.75 million.
13 July 1985	USSR, France [athletics]	The Soviet pole vaulter Sergey Bubka makes the first ever 6-m/19.7-ft jump, in Paris, France.
13 July 1985	UK, USA [popular music]	Live Aid, organized by Band Aid to raise funds for famine-relief in Africa, is a day-long concert held simultaneously at Wembley Stadium in London, England, and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Over $70 million is raised worldwide.
1 September 1985	UK [cinema and film]	The British Board of Film Classification institutes a video classification system.
1 September 1985	USA [ships and shipping]	The wreck of the Titanic, which sank in 1912, is discovered by US entrepreneur Robert Ballard using the Argo, a remote-controlled robot equipped with video cameras.
10 September 1985	Europe, South Africa [diplomacy]	European Community foreign ministers approve sanctions against South Africa, although Britain delays a decision until 25 September.
10 October 1985	USA [births and deaths]	Orson Welles, US film actor, director, producer, and writer, best known for Citizen Kane, dies in Los Angeles, California (70).
15 November 1985	Northern Ireland [diplomacy]	The Anglo-Irish Agreement is signed at Hillsborough Castle, giving the Irish Republic a consultative role in the affairs of Northern Ireland. The British treasury minister Ian Gow resigns in protest.