On this day in 1985, the blockbuster action-comedy “Back to the Future”–in which John DeLorean’s iconic concept car is memorably transformed into a time-travel device–is released in theaters across the United States. “Back to the Future,” directed by Robert Zemeckis, starred Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly, a teenager who […]
Continue ReadingRoute 66 Decertified
After 59 years, the iconic Route 66 enters the realm of history on this day in 1985, when the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials decertifies the road and votes to remove all its highway signs. Measuring some 2,200 miles in its heyday, Route 66 stretched from Chicago, […]
Continue ReadingTWA Flight 847 Is Hijacked By Terrorists
TWA Flight 847 from Athens to Rome is hijacked by Shiite Hezbollah terrorists who immediately demand to know the identity of ”those with Jewish-sounding names.” Two of the Lebanese terrorists, armed with grenades and a 9-mm. pistol, then forced the plane to landin Beirut, Lebanon. Once on the ground, the […]
Continue ReadingEnglish Football Clubs Banned From Europe
On June 2, 1985, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) bans English football (soccer) clubs from competing in Europe. The ban followed the death of 39 Italian and Belgian football fans at Brussels’ Heysel Stadium in a riot caused by English football hooligans at that year’s European Cup final. […]
Continue ReadingSerial Killing Spree Is Put To An End
Leonard Lake is arrested near San Francisco, California, ending one of the rare cases of serial killers working together. Lake and Charles Ng were responsible for a series of particularly brutal crimes against young women in California and the Pacific Northwest during the mid-1980s. Lake was a former Marine who […]
Continue ReadingA Raid Is Set For MOVE Headquarters
In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, police begin evacuating people from their Osage Avenue homes in order to prepare for an operation against MOVE, a radical cult group that had assembled a large arsenal. By the end of the confrontation, 11 people were dead and 61 homes had been burned down. The roots […]
Continue ReadingFire Kills 50 At Soccer Stadium
Fifty people die in a fire in the grandstand at a soccer stadium in Bradford, England, on this day in 1985. The wooden roof that burned was scheduled to be replaced by a steel roof later that same week. Bradford was playing Lincoln City on the afternoon of May 11. […]
Continue ReadingReagan Visits Concentration Camp And War Cemetery
On this day in 1985, President Ronald Reagan angers Jewish leaders and Holocaust survivors by visiting the Bitburg war cemetery in Germany. Then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who suggested the visit, accompanied Reagan to the cemetery, where 2,000 German troops are buried. Reagan laid a wreath at the base of a […]
Continue ReadingVillanova Beats Georgetown For NCAA Basketball Championship
On this day in 1985, in one of the greatest upsets in college basketball history, the Villanova Wildcats beat the Georgetown Hoyas, 66-64, to win the NCAA Men’s Division I tournament. The victory was Villanova’s first-ever national championship. Over 23,000 college basketball fans gathered at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky, […]
Continue ReadingSheena Easton Sets A Billboard Chart Record When “Sugar Walls” Becomes A Top 10 R&B Hit
The controversial Prince-penned song “Sugar Walls” reaches #9 on Billboard magazine’s R&B Singles chart on March 2, 1985, and makes Sheena Easton the first and still only recording artist to score top-10 singles on all five major Billboard singles charts: Pop, Country, Dance, Adult Contemporary and R&B. To be fair, […]
Continue ReadingAmerican Recording Artists Gather To Record “We Are The World”
The special instruction Quincy Jones sent out to the several dozen pop stars invited to participate in the recording of “We Are the World” was this: “Check your egos at the door.” Jones was the producer of a record that would eventually go on to sell more than 7 million […]
Continue ReadingDon DeLillo’s White Noise Wins The American Book Award
On this day in 1985, Don DeLillo wins the American Book Award for his breakthrough novel, White Noise. Although DeLillo had been publishing novels since 1971, his books had received little attention. White Noise, a semi-satire about a professor of Hitler Studies exposed to an “airborne toxic event,” established DeLillo […]
Continue ReadingCoen Brothers Release Debut Film, Blood Simple
CThe hard-boiled, often gruesome black comedy Blood Simple, the debut offering from the Minnesota-born brothers Joel and Ethan Coen, premieres on this day in 1985. The film told the story of Julian Marty (played by Dan Hedaya), a bar owner who hires a private detective (M. Emmett Walsh) to follow […]
Continue ReadingUnited States Walks Out Of World Court Case
For the first time since joining the World Court in 1946, the United States walks out of a case. The case that caused the dramatic walkout concerned U.S. paramilitary activities against the Nicaraguan government. For the Reagan administration, efforts to undermine the Sandinista government in Nicaragua had been a keystone […]
Continue ReadingReal-Life Psycho Ed Gein Dies
On July 26, 1984, Ed Gein, a serial killer infamous for skinning human corpses, dies of complications from cancer in a Wisconsin prison at age 77. Gein served as the inspiration for writer Robert Bloch’s character Norman Bates in the 1959 novel “Psycho,” which in 1960 was turned into a […]
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