October 1985 in History

Events in History

Oct 2 Russian party leader Gorbachev visits Paris (his first trip abroad)

Oct 3 Pope John Paul II beatifies Titus Brandsma

Oct 3 South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands adopts constitution
Oct 3 Walter Polovchak becomes a "free man" upon turning 18
Oct 4 Free Software Foundation is founded in Massachusetts, USA
Oct 4 Shi'ite Muslims claim to have killed hostage William Buckley
Oct 5 Grambling's Eddie Robinson wins record 324th football game
Oct 6 Marita Koch of E Germany sets 400m woman's record (47.6) in Australia
Oct 6 PC Keith Blakelock is murdered as riots erupt in the Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham, north London.
Oct 7 21st NASA Space Shuttle Mission (51-J): Atlantis 1 lands at Edwards AFB
Oct 7 KHQ-AM in Spokane Wash's final transmission
Oct 7 PLO terrorists seize Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro
Oct 8 "Rembrandt & Hitler or Me" premieres in Amsterdam
Oct 9 Central Park's Strawberry Fields, dedicated
Oct 9 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
Oct 10 Sudan adopts interim constitution
Oct 10 US fighter jets force Egyptian plane carrying hijackers of Italian ship Achille Lauro to land in Italy, gunmen are placed in custody
Oct 11 Atlantis (51-J) returns to Kennedy Space Center via Kelly AFB

Oct 11 President Reagan bans import of South African Krugerrands to the USA

Oct 11 US intercepts Egyptian Boeing with Achille Lauro terrorists
Oct 12 Challenger moves to Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center (Florida) for maintenance of STS 61A mission
Oct 12 Intl Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War receives Nobel Prize
Oct 12 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
Oct 13 Belgium premier Martens CVP wins parliamentary election
Oct 15 Nobel prize for economics awarded to Franco Modigliani
Oct 15 Shelley Taylor of Australia makes fastest swim ever around Manhattan Island, doing it in 6 hours 12 minutes 29 seconds
Oct 15 Shuttle Columbia carries Spacelab into orbit
Oct 16 Challenger vehicle moves to launch pad for STS 61A mission

Oct 16 Intel introduces 32-bit 80386 microcomputer chip

Oct 16 Nobel prize for chemistry awarded to Herbert Hauptman & Jerome Karle
Oct 17 French author Claude Simon wins the Nobel Prize for Literature
Oct 25 Kosmos 1700 communications satellite placed in geostationary orbit
Oct 26 Hurricane Juan kills 97 in US
Oct 27 Hurricane Juan ravages US Gulf states & east coast, 49 die
Oct 27 Thieves steal 9 paintings, including 5 Monet's and 2 Renoir's
Oct 28 Ravi Ratnayeke takes 8-83 for Sri Lanka v Pakistan
Oct 29 Major General Samuel K. Doe is announced the winner of the first multiparty election in Liberia
Oct 30 22nd NASA Space Shuttle Mission (61-A): Challenger 9 launches

Oct 1 American writer (New Yorker: Stuart Little; Charlotte's Web), dies at 86

Oct 5 Karl Menger, Austrian-American mathematician (dimension theory), dies at 83
Oct 8 Leon Klinghoffer, American murdered by hijackers of the Achille Lauro when they threw him off the boat at 69
Oct 8 Malcolm Ross, American balloonist and atmospheric physicist, dies at 65
Oct 8 Ricardo Bacchelli, Italian playwright and poet (Il malino del Po), dies at 94
Oct 9 Emílio Garrastazu Médici, 28th President of Brazil (1969-74), dies at 79
Oct 11 Alex La Guma, South African novelist (A Walk in the Night), and anti-apartheid activist (1956 Treason Trial), dies of a heart attack at 61
Oct 15 Meret Oppenheim, German born Swiss surrealist artist, dies at 72
Oct 18 Benjamin Moloisi, South African poet/Anc'er, hanged at 30
Oct 19 Alfred Rouleau, French Canadian businessman (b. 1915)
Oct 24 Lásló Jósef Bíró, Hungarian inventor (ballpoint pen), dies at 86
Oct 24 Maurice Roy, Archbishop of Quebec, (b. 1905)
Oct 25 Elsa Moranet, writer, dies at 67
Oct 31 Nikos Engonopoulos, Greek painter and poet (b. 1907)