The space shuttle Challenger is lost just after liftoff on this day in 1986, killing the seven astronauts aboard. The Challenger was the second shuttle built by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It took its first flight into space on April 4, 1983, and made a total of nine voyages prior to January […]
Challenger Disaster
At 11:38 a.m. EST, on January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Christa McAuliffe is on her way to becoming the first ordinary U.S. civilian to travel into space. McAuliffe, a 37-year-old high school social studies teacher from New Hampshire, won a competition that earned her a place […]
Bears Beat Patriots In Super Bowl XX
On January 26, 1986, in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Chicago Bears score a Super Bowl record number of points to defeat the New England Patriots, 46-10, and win their first championship since 1963. Led by Coach Mike Ditka, a tight end for the Bears during their last Super Bowl win, Chicago won 17 of 18 […]
Rock Hudson Announces He Has AIDS
On this day in 1985, Rock Hudson, a quintessential tall, dark and handsome Hollywood leading man of the 1950s and 1960s who made more than 60 films during his career, announces through a press release that he is suffering from acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). With that announcement, Hudson became the first major celebrity to […]
Reagan’s Doctors Discover Possibly Cancerous Colon Polyp
On this day in 1985, while President Ronald Reagan is undergoing surgery to remove a benign polyp in his large intestine, doctors discover a second polyp and perform a biopsy to determine whether or not it is cancerous. Reagan’s 1985 surgery was performed at Bethesda Naval Medical Center in Maryland. He was 74 years old […]
Live Aid Is Held Simultaneously In London And Philadelphia And Broadcast Live Throughout The World
“This is your Woodstock, and it’s long overdue.” That was the introduction offered by 1960s folk icon Joan Baez at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the opening of the North American portion of Live Aid on this day in 1985. The biggest rock concert and charity event in the history of the world, staged […]
Live Aid Concert
On July 13, 1985, at Wembley Stadium in London, Prince Charles and Princess Diana officially open Live Aid, a worldwide rock concert organized to raise money for the relief of famine-stricken Africans. Continued at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia and at other arenas around the world, the 16-hour “superconcert” was globally linked by satellite to more […]
The Sinking Of The Rainbow Warrior
In Auckland harbor in New Zealand, Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior sinks after French agents in diving gear plant a bomb on the hull of the vessel. One person, Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira, was killed. The Rainbow Warrior, the flagship of international conservation group Greenpeace, had been preparing for a protest voyage to a French nuclear test […]