Last Time on HOARATS
1st Electric Circus Garden Outlaws – 1880 – 1888
Now we focus on these years beginning in
1885
The Year Marty McFly and Doc Brown time traveled to the old west
in their Time Traveling Delorean.
Also, two stepbrothers accidentally invent a time machine and are transported from the present day to 1885,
where they come into conflict with the local mayor and are Lost in the West.
Picture This
W. L. Wyllie Storm and Sunshine: A Battle with the Elements
News of the World
A lot of interesting events and firsts happen this year.
But to limit it, I narrowed it down…
- January 20 – American inventor LaMarcus Adna Thompson patents a roller coaster.
- Feb. 21: Washington Monument dedicated.
- March 3 – A subsidiary of the American Bell Telephone Company, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T), is incorporated in New York.
- June 17 – The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.
- July 6 – Louis Pasteur and Émile Roux successfully test their rabies vaccine. The patient is Joseph Meister, a boy who was bitten by a rabid dog.
- July 14 – Sarah E. Goode is the first African-American woman to apply for and receive a patent, for the invention of the hideaway bed.
- July 15 – The Reservation at Niagara Falls opens, enabling access to all for free.
- December 1 – The U.S. Patent Office acknowledges this date as the day Dr Pepper is served for the first time; the exact date of Dr. Pepper’s invention is unknown.
- Karl Benz produces the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, regarded as the first automobile (patented and publicly launched the following year).
- John Kemp Starley demonstrates the Rover safety bicycle, regarded as the first practical modern bicycle.
- The Servant Girl Annihilator, also known as the Austin Axe Murderer and the Midnight Assassin, was an unidentified American serial killer who preyed upon the city of Austin, Texas, between 1884 and 1885.
- Captain John Walker and German-American Katherine Walker ( November 25, 1848 – February 5, 1931) became lighthouse keepers of the Robbins Reef Light in New York Harbor in 1885. John died a year later in 1886 and his last words to his wife were “Mind the light, Kate. She kept the light for more than 30 years after the death of her husband.
Arrivals
This was the year that saw the birth of several people, some who would live to the year Star Wars first came out in cinemas across the globe including …
Alice Paul, (January 11, 1885 – July 9, 1977) She is one of the foremost leaders and strategists of the campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits sex discrimination in the right to vote.
Umberto Nobile, (January 21 1885 – 30 July 1978) Nobile was a developer and promoter of semi-rigid airships in the years between the two World Wars. He is primarily remembered for designing and piloting the airship Norge, which may have been the first aircraft to reach the North Pole, and which was indisputably the first to fly across the polar ice cap from Europe to America. Nobile also designed and flew the Italia, a second polar airship; this second expedition ended in a deadly crash and provoked an international rescue effort.
John Henry Towers, (January 30, 1885 – April 30, 1955) was a highly decorated United States Navy four-star admiral and pioneer naval aviator.He was one of few and the only early Naval Aviation pioneers to survive the hazards of early flight to remain with naval aviation throughout his career.
Clementine Churchill, . April 1, 1885 –December 12, 1977) was the wife of English prime minister Winston Churchill.
George Francis “Gabby” Hayes (May 7, 1885 – February 9, 1969) Gabby is best known for his numerous appearances in B-Western film series as the bewhiskered, cantankerous, but ever-loyal and brave comic sidekick of the cowboy stars Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers.
Gianni Vella (9 May 1885 – 3 September 1977) was a Maltese artist. After studying in Rome, he produced many religious works which can be found in many churches in the Maltese Islands, but he also produced some secular works including landscape paintings, cartoons and a stamp design.
John Edensor Littlewood (June 9, 1885 –September 6, 1977) was a British mathematician who worked on topics relating to analysis, number theory, and differential equations,
Theda Bara (July 29, 1885 – April 7, 1955), One of the silent era cinema’s early sex symbols nicknamed The Vamp.
Departures
Victor Hugo, (February 26,1802 – 22 May 22, 1885)
author of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and Les Misérables (1862).
Saint Thérèse Couderc (1805–1885)
Jumbo the Circus Elephant (about December 25, 1860 – September 15, 1885)
a performer in P. T. Barnum‘s circus. He died when he was hit by a train.
American inventors George Eastman and Hannibal Goodwin each invent a sensitized celluloid base roll photographic film to replace the glass plates then in use.
On the Airwaves
Inventor Nathan Stubblefield, (November 22, 1860 – March 28, 1928) was an American inventor best known for his wireless telephone work. Between 1885 and 1892, he worked on an induction transmission system in regards to radio..
Publications Hot of the Press
Mark Twain’s ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn‘ is published in the U.S.having been published in England the year before.
H. Rider Haggard’s “King Solomon’s Mines” featuring a Indiana Jones type character.
The Griffin and the Minor Canon by Frank R. Stockton .It is found in the anthology Tales Before Tolkien: The Roots of Modern Fantasy (2003) which also contain stories by popular fantasy writers such as, George McDonald, The Princess and the Goblin (1871) L. Frank Baum The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) E. Nesbit Five Children and It (1902) and H. Rider Haggard.
May 2 Good Housekeeping magazine goes on sale for the first time in the United States.
Good Sports
- National League v. American Association – Chicago NL ties St Louis A’s, 3 games to 3 with one tie.
- The Cuban Giants, composed mainly of African-American players from Philadelphia, is the first black professional baseball team on a reasonably permanent basis. It will sometimes join a league and use a regular home park but more often tour independently.
Sanctifying Time
- Immortale Dei – On the Christian Constitution of States, by Pope Leo XIII, 1 November 1885
- Quod Auctoritate – Proclaiming an Extraordinary Jubilee, by Pope Leo XIII, 22 December 1885
- Spectata Fides – On Christian Education, by Pope Leo XIII, 27 November 1885
- The Lepers of Molokai, by Charles Warren Stoddard
The Sound of Music and Other Cultural Milestones
“How Great Thou Art” is a Christian hymn based on an original Swedish hymn entitled “O Store Gud” written in 1885 by Carl Boberg (1859–1940). The English version of the hymn and its title are a loose translation by the English missionary Stuart K. Hine from 1949. The hymn was popularised by George Beverly Shea and Cliff Barrows during Billy Graham’s crusades. It was voted the British public’s favourite hymn by BBC‘s Songs of Praise. “How Great Thou Art” was ranked second (after “Amazing Grace“) on a list of the favourite hymns of all time in a survey by Christianity Today magazine in 2001 and in a nationwide poll by Songs Of Praise in 2019.
This is a patriotic Ukrainian hymn published in 1885, which became a spiritual anthem of Ukraine. The text was written by Oleksandr Konysky, and the music was composed by Mykola Lysenko, first with a children’s choir in mind. The song became the regular closing hymn in services of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and other churches. It gained national significance when it was performed by mass choirs during the Ukrainian War of Independence in 1917–1920. The hymn was intended to be an official spiritual anthem of Ukraine. It has closed sessions of oblast councils, and has been performed at major national functions.
– Gilbert and Sullivan‘s comic opera The Mikado opens, at the Savoy Theatre in London on March 14. 1985
1931
Picture This
Fire Rescue Norman Rockwell
Salvador Dalí – The Persistence of Memory
News of the World
- February 26, 1930, until April 15, 1931. Castellammarese War. This was a bloody power struggle for control of the American Mafia between partisans of Joe “The Boss” Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano that took place in New York City, New York. The war was named after the Sicilian town of Castellammare del Golfo, the birthplace of Maranzano. Maranzano’s faction prevailed in the conflict and divided New York’s crime families into the Five Families; Maranzano declared himself capo di tutti i capi (“boss of all bosses”). However, Maranzano was murdered in September 1931 on orders of Lucky Luciano, who established a power-sharing arrangement called the Commission, a group of Mafia families of equal stature, to avoid such wars in the future.
- January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics.
- January 3 – Albert Einstein begins doing research at the California Institute of Technology, along with astronomer Edwin Hubble.
- January 25 – Mohandas Gandhi is again released from imprisonment in India.
- February 4 – Soviet leader Joseph Stalin gives a speech calling for rapid industrialization, arguing that only strong industrialized countries will win wars, while “weak” nations are “beaten”. Stalin states: “We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they will crush us.” The first five-year plan in the Soviet Union is intensified, for the industrialization and collectivization of agriculture.
- April 25 – The automobile manufacturer Porsche is founded by Ferdinand Porsche in Stuttgart.
- May 7– the Irish Youth Hostel Service, An Óige, is established.
- October 5 – American aviators Clyde Edward Pangborn and Hugh Herndon, Jr., complete the first non-stop flight across the Pacific Ocean, flying their plane, Miss Veedol, from Misawa, Japan, to East Wenatchee, Washington, in 41½ hours.[
- October 24 – The George Washington Bridge across the Hudson River in the United States is dedicated; it opens to traffic the following day. At 3,500 feet (1,100 m), it nearly doubles the previous record for the longest main span in the world.
- December 5 – The original Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow (1883) is dynamited, by order of Joseph Stalin.
Arrivals
- James Earl Jones (born January 17, 1931)
- Dean Jones, (January 25, 1931 – September 1, 2015)
- James Dean, (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955)
- Mikhail Gorbachev (March 2, 1931 – August 30, 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country’s dissolution in 1991.
- William Shatner (born March 22, 1931)
- Leonard Nimoy (March 26, 1931 – February 27, 2015)
- Willie Mays (May 6, 1931 – June 18, 2024)
- Barbara Eden (August 23, 1931 )
Departures
- Thomas Edison
- March 31 – Knute Rockne, American football coach (b. 1888) 1931
- December 26 – Melvil Dewey, American librarian, inventor of the Dewey Decimal Classification (b. 1851)[78]
- Alfred Giles, Australian explorer (b. 1846)
- March 25 – Ida B. Wells, African-American anti-lynching crusader (b. 1862)
- Alice in Wonderland, directed by Bud Pollard
- January 30 – Charlie Chaplin comedy drama film City Lights receives its public premiere at the Los Angeles Theater with Albert Einstein as guest of honor. Contrary to the current trend in cinema, it is a silent film, but with a score by Chaplin. Critically and commercially successful from the start, it will place consistently in lists of films considered the best of all time.
- A Connecticut Yankee, directed by David Butler, starring Will Rogers
- The Criminal Code, directed by Howard Hawks, starring Walter Huston
- Dracula, directed by Tod Browning, starring Bela Lugosi
- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, directed by Rouben Mamoulian, starring Fredric March and Miriam Hopkins
- Frankenstein, directed by James Whale, starring Boris Karloff, Colin Clive and Mae Clarke
- Huckleberry Finn, directed by Norman Taurog, starring Jackie Coogan
- Monkey Business, directed by Norman Z. McLeod, starring the Marx Brothers
- Pardon Us, directed by James Parrott, starring Laurel and Hardy
- Parlor, Bedroom and Bath, directed by Edward Sedgwick, starring Buster Keaton
On the Airwaves
Publications Hot of the Press
- January 10 – A rare copy of Edgar Allan Poe‘s Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Other Poems and first editions of The Scarlet Letter and Moby-Dick are stolen from New York Public Library by Samuel Dupree, on behalf of a crooked New York antiquarian book dealer, Harry Gold.
- October 4 – The Dick Tracy comic strip first appears, created by cartoonist Chester Gould.
- Endurance: An Epic of Polar Adventure by
- Detection Club – The Floating Admiral
- Pearl S. Buck – The Good Earth
- Irma S. Rombauer – The Joy of Cooking
- The Place of the Lion by Charles Williams – Platonic archetypes begin to appear around an English country town, wreaking havoc and drawing to the surface the spiritual strengths and flaws of individual characters.
- Ruth Plumly Thompson – Pirates in Oz (25th in the Oz series overall and the 11th written by her)
- Agatha Christie – The Sittaford Mystery
- “A Secret Vice“, also known as “A Hobby for The Home“, is a lecture first presented by English philologist and author J. R. R. Tolkien in 1931. The lecture concerns Tolkien’s relations with and view on constructed languages, in particular on artistic languages. In the talk, Tolkien discusses the human desire to make languages, and his criteria to create a good language – these include phonoaesthetics (the beauty of sounds) and the presence of a mythology to accompany the language. Tolkien’s presentation was the first instance of him openly exhibiting his hobby of conlanging, and includes examples of several of his languages.The talk was first published in essay form in 1983, in an anthology of Tolkien’s previously unpublished works edited by his son, Christopher.
Good Sports
- 1–10 October — St. Louis Cardinals (NL) defeats Philadelphia Athletics (AL) to win the 1931 World Series by four games to three.
- The Negro National League disbands. St. Louis Stars win the last championship.
- July 9, 1931– Dublin-born racing driver Kaye Don breaks the world water speed record at Lake Garda, Italy.[
Sanctifying Time
February 1931 – In Płock, St. Faustina Kowalska had a vision of Jesus who tasked her with spreading the devotion to his Divine Mercy.
- Nova Impendet – On the Economic Crisis, by Pope Pius XI, 2 October 1931
- Quadragesimo Anno – On Reconstruction of the Social Order, by Pope Pius XI, 15 May 1931
- Saint Robert Bellarmine is proclaimed a Doctor of the Church
- Saint Albert the Great is Canonized and also proclaimed a Doctor of the Church
Venerations of 1931.
- Blessed Contardo Ferrini (5 April 1859 – 17 October 1902)
- Saint Catherine Labouré
- Saint Gemma Galgani
September 28, 1931 -C. S. Lewis becomes a Christian: One evening in September, Lewis had a long talk on Christianity with J.R.R. Tolkien (a devout Roman Catholic) and Hugo Dyson. (The summary of that discussion is recounted for Arthur Greeves in They Stand Together.) That evening’s discussion was important in bringing about the following day’s event that Lewis recorded in Surprised by Joy: “When we [Warnie and Jack] set out [by motorcycle to the Whipsnade Zoo] I did not believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did.” The Life of C.S. Lewis Timeline – C.S. Lewis Foundation (cslewis.org)
The Sound of Music and Other Cultural Milestones
- January 26 – The play Green Grow the Lilacs by Cherokee playwright Lynn Riggs, opens on Broadway. It is later adapted as Oklahoma! by Rodgers and Hammerstein.
- “As Time Goes By” w.m. Herman Hupfeld
- Bing Crosby “Just One More Chance “At Your Command” “Out of Nowhere“
- “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” w. E. Y. Harburg m. Jay Gorney
- “Dancing In The Dark” w. Howard DietzArthur Schwartz
- “Dream a Little Dream of Me” Wayne King and His Orchestra
- “Don’t Take My Boop-Oop-A-Doop Away” w. Sammy Timberg m. Samuel Lerner. Introduced by Mae Questeland Rudy Vallee in the Betty Boop animated short Musical Justice (1931)
- “Good-night Sweetheart” Wayne King and His Orchestra (vocal Ernie Birchill)
- “Just a Gigolo” Leo Reisman and His Orchestra (vocal Ben W. Gordon) “Out of Nowhere“\
- Minnie the Moocher“
1955
Saturday,November 5, 1955: The Mystery of Time Travel Time Travel is first theorized- Doc Brown slips off his toilet whilst hanging a clock and has a vision of the flux capacitor.
Picture This
Marriage License. Norman Rockwell 1955.
Norman Rockwell Museum.
News of the World
- February 9 – Apartheid in South Africa: 60,000 non-white residents of the Sophiatown suburb of Johannesburg are forcibly evicted.
- March 2 – Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old African-American girl, refuses to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, to a white woman after the driver demands it. She is carried off the bus backwards, while being kicked, handcuffed and harassed on the way to the police station. She becomes a plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle (1956), which rules bus segregation to be unconstitutional.
- April 15 – Ray Kroc opens his first McDonald’s, in Des Plaines, Illinois.
- April 12 – The Salk polio vaccine, having passed large-scale trials earlier in the United States, receives full approval by the Food and Drug Administration.
- May 25 – Joe Brown and George Band are the first to attain the summit of Kangchenjunga in the Himalayas, as part of the British Kangchenjunga expedition led by Charles Evans.
July 17, 1955 The Disneyland theme park opens in Anaheim, California, an event broadcast on the American Broadcasting Company television network.
- August 28 – Black 14-year-old Emmett Till is lynched and shot in the head for allegedly grabbing and threatening a white woman in Money, Mississippi; his white murderers, Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam, are acquitted by an all-white jury.
- November 1– Official start date of the Vietnam War between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and Republic of Vietnam; the north is allied with the Viet Cong.[6]
- November 27 – The Westboro Baptist Church holds its first service in Topeka, Kansas.
- General Motors becomes the first American corporation to make a profit of over 1 billion dollars in 1 year.
Mysterious World
Christmas Eve, dated 1955, a boy starts to become skeptical of the existence of Santa Claus. Struggling to fall asleep, he witnesses a steam locomotive arrive on the street and goes outside to examine it, ripping a hole in his dressing gown pocket on the way. The conductor introduces the train as the Polar Express, which was on its way to the North Pole. Initially reluctant, the boy jumps aboard as the train departs.
June 28, 1955 –Steven Greer: Summoning Aliens? (CSETI, CE5) Steven Macon Greer (June 28, 1955) is an American ufologist who founded the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI) and the Disclosure Project, which seeks the disclosure of alleged classified UFO information’
1955 – Area 51 Area 51 is the common name of a highly classified United States Air Force (USAF) facility within the Nevada Test and Training Range. A remote detachment administered by Edwards Air Force Base, the facility is officially called Homey Airport (ICAO: KXTA, FAA LID: XTA) or Groom Lake (after the salt flat next to its airfield). Details of its operations are not made public, but the USAF says that it is an open training range, and it is commonly thought to support the development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons systems. The USAF and CIA acquired the site in 1955, primarily for flight testing the Lockheed U-2 aircraft.
Area 51 is located in the southern portion of Nevada, 83 miles (134 km) north-northwest of Las Vegas. The surrounding area is a popular tourist destination, including the small town of Rachel on the “Extraterrestrial Highway“.
Arrivals
- Mr. Bean, (January 6, 1955)
- Venerable Maria Cristina Ogie March 9, 1955 – January 8, 1974
- John Grisham, (February 8, 1955)
- John Hinckley Jr. born May 29, 1955) is an American man who attempted to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Reagan as he left the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., on March 30, 1981, two months after Reagan’s first inauguration.
- Venerable Nelson Santana (July 31, 1955 – December 24, 1964)
- Rich Mullins, (October 21, 1955 – September 19, 1997)
- Steven Wright December 6, 1955
- Terry Lovelace, Esq, (1955) is born. In 1977, Terry and another Air Force medics had a frightening encounter while camping in an Arkansas state park named Devil’s Den. He has written a best selling book about that incident named Incident at Devils Den, a true story (2018).
Kevin Costner January 18, 1955,
Jeff Daniels February 19, 1955 American actor
Kelsey Grammer, February 21, 1955
Bruce Willis March 19, 1955
Departures
- James Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955). Only 24, American actor, Hill Number One as John the Beloved Disciple and starred in Rebel Without a Cause, Giant, East of Eden, Learn more @ james dean – Astonishing Legends
- St. Katharine Drexel (November 26, 1858 – March 3, 1955)
- Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 – 18 April 18, 1955)
- Cy Young, (March 29, 1867 – November 4, 1955) American baseball player (Cleveland Spiders) and member of the MLB Hall of Fame
- Shemp Howard, (March 11, 1895 – November 22, 1955) American actor and comedian (The Three Stooges)
- Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy, starring Bud Abbott and Lou Costello
- Confession, directed by Ken Hughes, starring Sydney Chaplin – (GB)
- Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, starring Fess Parker and Buddy Ebsen
- Walt Disney’s Lady and the Tramp
- Land of the Pharaohs, directed by Howard Hawks
- Seven Cities of Gold
- This Island Earth
- Tennessee’s Partner
- To Catch a Thief, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly
- Wizard of Oz Reissue
On the Airwaves
- Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (TV Movie 1955) –
- Adventures of Superman (1952–1958) is on the air.
- Life Is Worth Living with Fulton Sheen was on the air.
- You Bet Your Life The quiz series hosted by Groucho Marx (October 2, 1890 – August 19, 1977) was on the air.
- April 15 – A young Jim Henson introduces the earliest version of Kermit the Frog (made in March), in the premiere of his puppet show Sam and Friends, on WRC-TV in Washington, D.C.
- I Love Lucy # 125 S 4 E 28 Air Date May 9, 1955: Before Carolyn leaves Hollywood, she wants to see all of the celebrities that Lucy claimed would show up for a get-together. Dressing up with masks of Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Jimmy Durante, and other celebrities, Lucy manages to fool the near-sighted Carolyn. However, Harpo Marx shows up and soon discovers Lucy dressed up as him.
- October 2 – Alfred Hitchcock Presents debuts on the CBS TV network in the United States.
- October 3 – The Mickey Mouse Club debuts on the ABC-TV network in the United States.
- Barry Atwater in “The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral”, an episode of the CBS TV series You Are There, November 6, 1955
- The Honeymooners # 14 The Man from Space (December 31, 1955)
Publications Hot of the Press
- A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories (1955) by Flannery O’ Connor is published.
- The first edition of the Guinness Book of Records is published, in London.
- Crockett Johnson – Harold and the Purple Crayon
- Agatha Christie – Hickory Dickory Dock
- The End of Eternity
- J. R. R. Tolkien – The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
- C. S. Lewis – The Magician’s Nephew
- On Beyond Zebra! by Dr. Seuss,
- Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy (Introduction), Robert F. Kennedy (Foreword) is published
- The Time Patrol (1955–1995) by Poul Anderson Could Time Travel to prevent crime be moral? This book may be able to answer that question as it is about an organization which protects the past.
- Hugo Award Best Novel: They’d Rather Be Right (also known as The Forever Machine)(1955) by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley.
- Tunnel in the Sky (1955) (The ninth book in the Heinlein’s Juveniles series) by Robert Heinlein
- Way to Inner Peace (1955) by Fulton Sheen
Good Sports
- World Series – October 4 – The Brooklyn Dodgers win 4 games to 3 over the New York Yankees; Series MVP is pitcher Johnny Podres, Brooklyn
Sanctifying Time
Mother Teresa opened Nirmala Shishu Bhavan, the Children’s Home of the Immaculate Heart, as a haven for orphans and homeless youth.
The Sound of Music and Other Cultural Milestones
- Earth Angel” – The Crew-Cuts
- Dance with Me, Henry” – w.m. Johnny Otis, Hank Ballard and Etta James aka “Wallflower”
- “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” – trad West Indies arr. William Attaway and Irving Burgie (aka Lord Burgess)
- “Ballad Of Davy Crockett” – Bill Hayes
- “Johnny B. Goode” – Marty McFly with The Starlighters
- Rock Around the Clock” – Bill Haley & His Comets
- Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel write their first song, “The Girl For Me” (copyrighted with the Library of Congress in 1956), and begin singing together as a duo while still in high school in New York City.
- – Colonel Tom Parker signs Elvis Presley to RCA Records on November 22, 1955.
- “Baby Let’s Play House” – Elvis Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977)
- ” Bing Crosby (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) “Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep” from White Christmas – Music and Lyrics by Irving Berlin It was nominated for an Academy Award as “Best Song” but was defeated by “Three Coins in the Fountain” from the film of the same name written by Jule Styne and lyricist Sammy Cahn. It was performed on the 1955 Academy Awards telecast by vocalist Peggy King
1985
October 26, 1985,1:20 a.m.: First Time Traver (that we know of)- Doc Brown’s Temporal Experiment #1 proves to be a success. His dog Einstein becomes the world’s first time traveler by departing one minute into the future. (This time jump does not create a new timeline; timelines are only created by going back in time. Einstein merely moves one minute forward on Timeline 1. The Doc states this is the case with timelines.
Picture This
Reigning Queens is a 1985 series of silkscreen portraits by American artist Andy Warhol. The screen prints were presented as a portfolio of sixteen; four prints each of the four queens regnant. The subjects were Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Queen Ntfombi Twala of Swaziland and Queen Margrethe II of Denmark. The portrait of Queen Elizabeth II was based on the official photograph released for her Silver Jubilee in 1977, taken by Peter Grugeon at Windsor Castle on April 2, 1975.
News of the World
- January 20 – Ronald Reagan is privately sworn in for a second term as President of the United States.
- February 14 – Lebanon hostage crisis: CNN reporter Jeremy Levin is freed from captivity in Lebanon.
- February 19 – William J. Schroeder becomes the first patient with an artificial heart to leave the hospital.
- March 11 –Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and de facto leader of the Soviet Union.
- March 16 – Lebanon hostage crisis: US journalist Terry Anderson is taken hostage in Beirut; he remains a prisoner until December 4, 1991.
- April 15 – South Africa ends its ban on interracial marriages.
- April 19 – The Soviet Union performs a nuclear weapon test in eastern Kazakhstan.
- April 23 – Coca-Cola changes its formula and releases New Coke. The response is overwhelmingly negative and the original formula is back on the market in less than three months.
- May 5 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan joins West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl for a controversial funeral service at a cemetery in Bitburg, West Germany, which includes the graves of 59 elite S.S. troops from World War II.
- May 11 – The FBI brings charges against the suspected heads of the five Mafia families in New York City.
- June 6 – The remains of Josef Mengele, the physician notorious for Nazi human experimentation on inmates of Auschwitz concentration camp, buried in 1979 under the name of Wolfgang Gerhard, are exhumed in Embu das Artes, Brazil.
- June 27 – The iconic U.S. Route 66 is officially decommissioned.
- July 10 – The Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior is bombed and sunk in Auckland Harbour by French DGSE agents.
- July 19 –New Hampshire teacher Christa McAuliffe is selected as the first person to go into space under the Teacher in Space Project, and designated to ride aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger.
- September 1 – The wreck of the RMS Titanic is located by a joint American-French expedition led by Robert Ballard (WHOI) and Jean-Louis Michel (IFREMER) using side-scan sonar from RV Knorr.
- November 12 – A total solar eclipse occurs over Antarctica at 14:11:22 UTC.
- November 19 – Cold War: In Geneva, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.
Mysterious World
January 1985 – The Secret Soviet Doomsday Machine Dead Hand or Perimeter , a Cold War-era automatic nuclear weapons-control system, comes into operation. The Russian built device has the ability to launch nuclear strikes even if all the Russian leaders are dead. By most accounts, it is normally switched off and is supposed to be activated during times of crisis; however, as of 2009, it was said to remain fully functional and able to serve its purpose when needed.
Arrivals
- April 30 – Gal Gadot, Israeli actress and model
- December 29 – Alexa Ray Joel, American singer-songwriter and pianist
Departures
- Margaret Hamilton
- The Singing Nun – Wikipedia
- October 1 – E. B. White, American children’s writer and writer on style (born 1899)
- c. December 26 – Dian Fossey (b. 1932), American primatologist (murdered).
June 15 – Studio Ghibli, an animation studio, is founded in Tokyo.
- The Adventures of Mark Twain
- Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend
- Better Off Dead
- The Black Cauldron July 24, 1985
- Clue
- The Color Purple
- Cocoon featuring the song The Second Time Around by Bing Crosby
- Ewoks: The Battle for Endor
- Explorers
- Spielberg The Goonies Executive/Story/
- King Solomon’s Mines
- I Dream of Jeannie… Fifteen Years Later
- The Man with One Red Shoe
- My Science Project
- Ladyhawke
- Pee-wee’s Big Adventure
- The Purple Rose of Cairo
- Rocky IV
- Real Genius
- Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins
- Return to Oz
- Santa Claus: The Movie
- Spies Like Us
- Shadowlands (1985 film)
- Summer Rental
- Teen Wolf
- Young Sherlock Holmes
On the Airwaves
- Dr. Seuss: The Cat in the Hat / Dr. Seuss on the Loose (1985 VHS)
- Little Muppet Monsters Muppet Babies
- 1985 Marx Brothers Cheetos Commercial – YouTube
- Bill Marx (Harpo’s son) on Letterman, November 4, 1985 – YouTube
- Star Wars: Droids and Ewoks (TV series)
- Thirteen at Dinner
- January 4 Sesame Street broadcasts its 2,000th episode.
- Moonlighting
- MacGyver
- Amazing Stories
- The Twilight Zone
- Alfred Hitchcock Presents
- Alice in Wonderland
Publications Hot of the Press
- November 18: Bill Watterson‘s Calvin and Hobbes makes its debut.
- Chaplin: His Life and Art by film critic David Robinson which examines the life and works of Sir Charlie Chaplin. Along with Chaplin’s 1964 book My Autobiography, it was used as source material for the 1992 film Chaplin. The idea for the book originated with Chaplin’s long-time collaborator and producer Jerome Epstein.
- Laura Numeroff – If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
- Isaac Asimov – Robots and Empire
- Elizabeth Winthrop – The Castle in the Attic
- The Lays of Beleriand published in 1985, is the third volume of Christopher Tolkien‘s 12-volume book series, The History of Middle-earth, in which he analyzes the unpublished manuscripts of his father J. R. R. Tolkien.
- Chris Van Allsburg – The Polar Express
- The Private World of Dr. Seuss : A Visit to Theodor Geisel’s La Jolla Mountaintop – Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)
- Priscilla Beaulieu Presley – Elvis and Me
Good Sports
- October 6, 1985: Season-ending defeat leaves Giants with first 100-loss campaign in franchise history – Society for American Baseball Research (sabr.org)
- World Series – The Kansas City Royals defeat the St. Louis Cardinals 4 games to 3, becoming the first team to win the World Series after losing the first two games at home.
- March 31 – The inaugural WrestleMania is held in Madison Square Garden, New York, and is “main-evented” by Hulk Hogan and Mr. T vs. Paul Orndorff and Roddy Piper in a tag-team match.
Sanctifying Time
- President Ronald Reagan presents Mother Teresa with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony as First Lady Nancy Reagan looks on, 20 June 1985.
- November 12 – A total solar eclipse occurs over Antarctica at 14:11:22 UTC.
- November 13 – Armero tragedy: The Nevado del Ruiz volcano erupts, killing an estimated 23,000 people, including 21,000 killed by lahars, in the town of Armero, Colombia.
- November 19 – Cold War: In Geneva, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.
- Pope John Paul II – Address at the Martyr’s Shrine at Huronia
- Slavorum Apostoli – Apostles of the Slavs, by Pope John Paul II, 2 June 1985
- Saint Titus Brandsma is Beautified.
- Pope Blessed Pius IX is venerated.
- Saint Junipero Serra is venerated.
The Sound of Music and Other Cultural Milestones
Elvis Presley At 50 – January 5, 1985 – ABC World News Saturday – YouTube
Priscilla Presley with Barbara Walters 1985 – YouTube
- September 13 – Super Mario Bros. is released for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
- October 18 – The Nintendo Entertainment System is released in North America.
- April 7 – Wham! becomes the first Western pop group to perform in China when they play a concert in Beijing‘s Workers Stadium during an historic 10-day visit.
- April 10 – Madonna begins her very first tour, The Virgin Tour (named after her Like a Virgin album) in Seattle, Washington, USA.[7]
- April 20 – Tears for Fears single “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” becomes their highest-charting single in the UK as it reach number two on the singles chart, held off the top position for two consecutive weeks by “We are the World“.
- July 13 – Live Aid benefit concerts in London and Philadelphia raise over £50 million for famine relief in Ethiopia.
- September 6 – Michael Jackson purchases the publishing rights for most of the Beatles‘ music for $47 million, much to the dismay of Paul McCartney, against whom he is bidding.[
- January 28 – The charity single record “We Are the World” is recorded by USA for Africa including Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Billy Joel, Cyndi Lauper, Steve Perry, Kenny Loggins, Willie Nelson, Lionel Richie, Smokey Robinson, Kenny Rogers, Diana Ross, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Huey Lewis, Tina Turner, Sheila E., Harry Belafonte, Amy “Sunflower” Johnson, Lindsey Buckingham, Kim Carnes, Dionne Warwick, Waylon Jennings, Bob Geldof and Stevie Wonder, record the song “We Are the World“, written by Jackson and Ritchie.
- February 14 Whitney Houston releases her debut album.
- Shout“
- “Take On Me“
- Greatest Hits Volume I & II
- No Jacket Required
- Dare to Be Stupid
- “The Power of Love” /Back in Time– Huey Lewis and the News
- “The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough” – Cyndi Lauper
- Unguarded
- “That’s What Friends Are For” – Dionne Warwick (duets with Elton John, Gladys Knight & Stevie Wonder) (#1 in Australia, UK, PQ)
BB King – My Lucille
Les Misérables colloquially known a is a sung-through musical and an adaptation of Victor Hugo‘s 1862 novel of the same nam s Les Mis or Les Miz (/leɪ ˈmɪz/ lay MIZ),e, by Claude-Michel Schönber is a sung-through musical and an adaptation of Victor Hugo‘s 1862 novel of the same namg (music), Alain Boublil, Jean-Marc Natel (original French lyrics) and Herbert Kretzmer (English lyrics). The original French musical premiered in Paris in 1980 with direction by Robert Hossein. Its English-language adaptation by producer Cameron Mackintosh has been running in London since October 1985, making it the longest-running musical in the West End and
2015
Picture This
May 11–12 – Version O of Les Femmes d’Alger by Pablo Picasso sells for US$179.3 million at Christie’s auction in New York, while the sculpture L’Homme au doigt by Alberto Giacometti sells for US$141.3 million, setting a new world record for a painting and for a sculpture, respectively.
News of the World
- January 12 – A Boko Haram and Islamic State assault on Kolofata in the Far North Region of Cameroon is repelled by the Cameroonian Army, who kill 143 Boko Haram and Islamic State insurgents.
- March 6 – NASA‘s Dawn probe enters orbit around Ceres, becoming the first spacecraft to visit a dwarf planet.
- April 29 – The World Health Organization (WHO) declares that rubella has been eradicated from the Americas.
- June 30 – Cuba becomes the first country in the world to eradicate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis.
- July 20 – Cuba and the United States, ending 54 years of hostility between the nations, reestablish full diplomatic relations.
- July 29 – Microsoft releases the desktop operating system Windows 10.
- September 9 – Queen Elizabeth II, having been on the throne for 63 years, 217 days, became the longest-reigning British monarch in history and the longest-serving head of state of any nation in modern history, surpassing Queen Victoria who had reigned for 63 years, 216 days upon her death on January 22, 1901.[61][62]
- September 10 – Scientists announce the discovery of Homo naledi, a previously unknown species of early human in South Africa.[
- September 28 – NASA announces that liquid water has been found on Mars.
- November 13 – Multiple terrorist attacks claimed by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Paris, France, result in 130 fatalities.
Mysterious World
2015 – God and the gods The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible by Michael S. Heiser is published.
January 1, 2015 –The Holy Fire? Haris Skarlakidis publishes
March 23,2015 –The Bizarre Case of Victim F At approximately 1:53 p.m., VICTIM M called the Vallejo,
CA Police Department (VPD) reporting that between the early morning hours of 3:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m., an unknown and unidentified person or persons had broken into his residence located on Mare Island in Vallejo, California, drugged him and his girlfriend VICTIM F by force, and then took her with them against her will to an unknown location in his (VICTIM M’s) vehicle.
Arrivals
Princess Charlotte of Wales (Charlotte Elizabeth Diana; born May 2, 2015) is a member of the British royal family. She is the second child and only daughter of William, Prince of Wales, and Catherine, Princess of Wales. A granddaughter of King Charles III, she is third in the line of succession to the British throne and was born during the reign of her paternal great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II.
Jasmine Johnson (December 16, 2015) is the second child of American actor, producer, and retired professional wrestler Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.
Departures
Charles H. Townes, (July 28, 1915 – January 27, 2015) American Nobel Prize-winning physicist and contributor to the invention of the laser
Rod Taylor, ( January 11, 1930 – January 7, 2015) was an Australian actor. He appeared in more than 50 feature films, including The Time Machine (1960), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) and The Birds (1963), directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
21 Coptic Martyrs of Libya – On February 12, 2015, the Islamic State (IS) released a report in their online magazine Dabiq showing photos of 21 Egyptian Christian construction workers that they had kidnapped in the city of Sirte, Libya, and whom they reported had been killed.
B.B. King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015), known professionally as B. B. King, was an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, shimmering vibrato, and staccato picking that influenced many later blues electric guitar players.
Yogi Berra (May 12, 1925 – September 22, 2015) was an American professional baseball catcher who later took on the roles of manager and coach. He played 19 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) (1946–1963, 1965), all but the last for the New York Yankees. He was an 18-time All-Star and won 10 World Series championships as a player—more than any other player in MLB history.[2] Berra had a career batting average of .285, while hitting 358 home runs and 1,430 runs batted in. He is one of only six players to win the American League Most Valuable Player Award three times. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest catchers in baseball history[3] and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972.
- Band of Robbers (2015) From the characters created by Mark Twain. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are grown men, still searching for the hidden treasure that has eluded them since childhood.
- Bridge of Spies starring Tom Hanks and directed by Steven Spielberg.
- Krampus featuring the songs It’s Beginning to Look Like Christmas and Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town by Bing Crosby.
- Inside Out– A Disney/Pixar Film
- Look Who’s Back
- The Letters is a 2014 American biographical drama film directed and written by William Riead. The film stars Juliet Stevenson as Mother Teresa, Max von Sydow, Rutger Hauer and Priya Darshini. It was produced by Colin Azzopardi, Tony Cordeaux, and Lisa Riead. It was released theatrically by Freestyle Releasing on December 4, 2015
- San Andreas Starring the Rock
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens
On the Airwaves
- Parks and Recreation—concluded on February 24, 2015.
- 20/20—Renewed for a thirty-seventh season on May 7, 2015
- The Goldbergs—Renewed for a third season on May 7, 2015.
- Once Upon a Time—Renewed for a fifth season on May 7, 2015
- The Muppets September 22, 2015, to March 1, 2016.
Publications Hot of the Press
The Annotated Marx Brothers: A Filmgoer’s Guide to In-Jokes, Obscure References and Sly Details by
What Pet Should I Get? is a Dr. Seuss children’s book, posthumously published in 2015. Believed to have been written between 1958 and 1962, the book chronicles the adventures of Jay and Kay from Seuss’ One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish in their attempts to buy a pet.
It was revealed on June 26, 2015 -the new Harry Potter story would be a play and it would receive its world premiere in mid-2016 at London’s Palace Theatre. The announcement marked the eighteenth anniversary of the publication of the first Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, published on June 26,1997. The new play was called Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
Harper Lee – Go Set a Watchman (July 14; written c.1955)
The Bodleian Library of the University of Oxford acquires its twelve millionth book, on November 10, 2015 – a unique copy of Shelley‘s subversive Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things “by a Gentleman of the University of Oxford”, published in 1811.
Good Sports
July 31 – The International Olympic Committee awards Beijing the right to host the 2022 Winter Olympics.
The Kansas City Royals captured the second World Series title in franchise history, with a 12-inning, 7–2 victory over the New York Mets in Game 5 at Citi Field. The Kansas City Royals are the first team since the 1989 Oakland Athletics to win the World Series a season after losing the World Series the previous year. They also are the first American League team since the 1961 New York Yankees to win a World Series a year after losing Game 7 of the World Series
Sanctifying Time
Mariam Baouardy or Mary of Jesus Crucified, (January 5, 1846 – August 26 1878), was a Discalced Carmelite nun of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church and was canonized on May 17, 2015.
Laudato si’ (June 18, 2015) is the second encyclical of Pope Francis, subtitled “on care for our common home”. In it, the Pope critiques consumerism and irresponsible economic development, laments environmental degradation and global warming, and calls all people of the world to take “swift and unified global action.”
Louis Martin (August 22, 1823 – July 29, 1894) and Azélie-Marie (“Zélie”) Guérin Martin ( December 23, 1831 – August 28, 1877) were a French Roman Catholic couple and the parents of five nuns, including Thérèse of Lisieux, a Carmelite nun who was canonized as a saint of the Catholic Church in 1925, a Doctor of the Church on October 9, 1997 and Léonie Martin declared “Servant of God” in 2015. In 2015, the couple were also canonized as saints, becoming the first spouses in the church’s history to be canonized as a couple.
Pope Francis canonized Junípero Serra on September 23, 2015 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., during his first visit to the United States. Serra’s missionary efforts earned him the title of “Apostle of California”.
On December 17, 2015, the Vatican Press Office confirmed that Pope Francis recognised a second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa
Missionaries of Charity nuns to close adoption centers in India – UCA News They cite difficulties in complying with government guideline. Mother Teresa began her first orphanage — Nirmala Shishu Bhavan — in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata in 1955, five years after she founded the congregation.
The Sound of Music and Other Cultural Milestones
Elvis at 80: The King still rules | CNN
Adele – Hello
The High Kings – Whiskey In The Jar
Kathleen Chaplin – Tu y Yo Feat. Billy Ronca
Kathleen Chaplin, (b 1975) is the third daughter of Michael John Chaplin (March 7, 1946) who was Charlie Chaplin’s son. Chaplin Children and Grandchildren
Hamilton: An American Musical is a sung-and-rapped-through biographical musical with music, lyrics, and a book by Lin-Manuel Miranda as well as choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler. Based on the 2004 biography Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, the musical covers the life of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton and his involvement in the American Revolution and the political history of the early United States. Composed over a seven-year period from 2008 to 2015, the music draws heavily from hip hop, as well as R&B, pop, soul, and traditional-style show tunes. It casts non-white actors as the Founding Fathers of the United States and other historical figures. Miranda described Hamilton as about “America then, as told by America now.”
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