1985

Overview

The year 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was an ordinary year of the Gregorian calendar, which began on Tuesday. It corresponds to the year of the ox in the Chinese horoscope.

International Recognition

* The United Nations declared it the International Year of Youth.
* UNESCO declared it the International Year of Music.

Events

### January
* 1 January:
+ Value Added Tax (VAT) entered into force in Turkey.
+ Italy took over the Presidency of the Council of the European Communities, marking the beginning of the first European passport being circulated in most Member States.
+ The first British cell phone was made by Ernie Wise.
* 10 January: TRT banned the use of certain words such as "revolution" and "freedom".
* 13 January: A passenger train accident in Turkey resulted in the deaths of 428 people due to a machinist failure.

### February
* 4 February: Prime Minister Turgut Özal apologized to Algeria for the approval of its independence proposal in 1958, citing the use of the shooting vote by Adnan Menderes' government.
* 26 February: The Pehlivan film, starring Tarık Akan, received a special prize at the Berlin Film Festival.

### March
* 12 March:
+ Three ASALA terrorists, who had taken hostages at the Canadian Embassy in Turkey, were caught after a five-hour operation. Ambassador Coşkun Kırca was wounded while jumping from the second floor.
+ The symbolics.com domain name was registered, marking it as the world's first commercial domain name.
* 15 March: Mike Tyson made his professional boxing debut.

### April
* 19 April: The USSR conducted nuclear tests in eastern Kazakhstan.

Notable Dates

* 27 January: The Organisation for International Cooperation was established.
* 31 March: No notable events mentioned in the sources.