July 1985 in History

Events in History

Election of Interest

Jul 5 Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party wins re-election in Zimbabwe for a second term

Jul 9 South Africa police arrested Dutch ANC'er Klaas de Jong
Jul 10 Coca-Cola Co announces it will resume selling old formula Coke

The Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior

Jul 10 French foreign intelligence agents blow up the Greenpeace boat Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbor, New Zealand to prevent it interfering with French nuclear tests in the South Pacific. Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira is killed.

The Rainbow Warrior sunk in Auckland harbour

Jul 11 Refurbished space shuttle Columbia moves overland from Palmdale to Dryden
Jul 11 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR

Event of Interest

Jul 12 Doctors discover a cancerous growth in President Reagan's colon

Jul 12 STS 51-F launch scrubbed at T -3s because of main engine shutdown
Jul 14 Columbia returns to Kennedy Space Center via Offutt AFB, Neb
Jul 14 Last USFL game-Baltimore Stars defeats Oakland Invaders, 28-24
Jul 16 Bill to abolish Greater London Council receives royal assent
Jul 18 USSR performs underground nuclear Test
Jul 19 Christa McAuliffe chosen as 1st school teacher to fly aboard the space shuttle
Jul 19 The Val di Stava Dam collapse killing 268 people in Val di Stava, Italy.
Jul 20 Divers find wreck of Spanish galleon Atocha
Jul 20 The government of Aruba passes legislation to secede from the Netherlands Antilles
Jul 21 Amina Fakir (Detroit), 23, crowned 18th Miss Black America
Jul 24 French DGSE officers Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart are arrested and charged with murder over the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior

Event of Interest

Jul 24 Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi signs a peace accord with Sikh leader Harchand Singh Longowai to settle the three-year Punjab crisis [1]

Jul 25 Steve Cram runs world record mile (3:46.32)
Jul 25 Uganda suspends constitution following coup
Jul 25 US performs nuclear Test at Nevada Test Site
Jul 25 USSR performs nuclear Test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
Jul 28 Alan Garcia sworn in as President of Peru
Jul 29 19th NASA Space Shuttle Mission (51-G): Challenger 8 launches
Jul 30 Discovery moves to Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center (Florida) for mating of STS 51-I mission
Jul 30 Valerie Lowrance, of Texas, 18, crowned America's Junior Miss

Historic Publication

Jul 31 Indian writer R.K. Narayan publishes his short story collection "Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories"

Deaths in History

Jul 1 Pauli Murray, African American poet and civil rights activist, dies at 74
Jul 4 John de Quay, Dutch premier (1959-63), dies at 83
Jul 5 Gerard Schmook, Flemish literature historian/custodian, dies at 86
Jul 7 Guido Kisch, Czech-American Jewish historian (Jews in medieval Germany), dies at 96
Jul 8 Gardner Cowles Jr., American publisher (Look Magazine), dies at 82
Jul 8 Simon Kuznets, American economist (Nobel 1971), dies at 84
Jul 9 Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg (b. 1896)
Jul 9 Jimmy Kinnon, Scottish founder of Narcotics Anonymous (b. 1911)
Jul 10 Fernando Pereira, military activist, murdered
Jul 16 Heinrich Böll, German writer, Nobel laureate (b. 1917)
Jul 17 Susanne Langer, American philosopher & educator (Philosophy in a New Key), dies at 89
Jul 18 Shahnawaz Bhutto, son of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto
Jul 19 Janusz A. Zajdel, Polish sci-fi author (The Whole Truth about Planet Xi), dies at 47
Jul 19 John Canaday, American art critic (Metropolitan Museum of Art Portfolios), dies at 78
Jul 20 Bruno de Finetti, Italian probabilist statistician and actuary, dies at 79
Jul 30 Julia Hall Bowman Robinson, American mathematician (b. 1919)
Jul 31 Eugene Carson Blake, US Secretary-General of World Council of Churches (1966-72), dies at 78