| 17th January 1985 | British Telecom announces it is going to phase out its famous red telephone boxes. |
| 20th January 1985 | U.S. President Ronald Reagan is privately sworn in for a second term in office. He is publicly sworn in the following day. |
| 10th February 1985 | Nelson Mandela rejects an offer of freedom from the South African government. |
| 11th March 1985 | Mohammed Al Fayed buys the London-based department store company Harrods. |
| 15th April 1985 | South Africa ends its ban on interracial marriages.
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| 11th May 1985 | A fire engulfs a wooden stand in the Valley Parade stadium in Bradford during a football match. Fifty-six people are killed. |
| 29th May 1985 | Thirty-eight spectators are killed in rioting on the terraces during the European Cup final between Liverpool FC and Juventus at the Heysel Stadium in Belgium. As a result, all English football teams are banned from European competition for five years. Liverpool serve a further ban of one additional year. |
| 4th July 1985 | Ruth Lawrence achieves a first in mathematics at Oxford University at just thirteen-years-old. She therefore becomes the youngest British person ever to earn a first-class degree and the youngest known graduate of Oxford University. |
| 13th July 1985 | “Live Aid” pop concerts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and London raise over £50 million for famine relief in Ethiopia. |
| 6th August 1985 | In Hiroshima, tens of thousands mark the 40th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city. |
| 1st September 1985 | A joint American-French expedition locates the wreck of the RMS Titanic. |
| 19th September 1985 | An earthquake measuring 8.1 on the Richter scale strikes Mexico City. More than 9,000 people are killed, 30,000 injured, and 95,000 left homeless. |
| 28th September 1985 | The 1985 Brixton race riots are sparked with the shooting of Dorothy “Cherry” Groce by the Metropolitan Police. |
| 1st October 1985 | The Israeli air force bombs the Palestine Liberation Organisation Headquarters near Tunis. |
| 18th October 1985 | The Nintendo Entertainment System is released in American shops. |
| 19th November 1985 | In Geneva, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time to attempt to end the Cold War. |
| 20th November 1985 | Microsoft Corporation releases the first version of Windows, Windows 1.0. |