May 13 - Philadelphia's mayor orders police to storm the radical group's MOVE headquarters to end a stand-off. The police drop an explosive device into the headquarters killing 11 MOVE members and destroying the homes of 61 city residents in the resulting fire and leaving 250 people homeless.
July 10 - After a storm of controversy surrounding a change in its cola's formula (see New Coke), Coca-Cola re-introduces the old formula as "Coca-Cola Classic".
July 13 - Live Aid pop concerts in both the United States and United Kingdom raise over £50 million for famine relief in Ethiopia.
November 6 - In Colombia, leftist guerrillas of the April 19 Movement seize control of the Palace of Justice in Bogotá. By the next day, 115 people are dead including 11 Supreme Court justices.
November 15 - In separate events, mail bombs kill two people in Salt Lake City, Utah; a third bomb explodes the next day, injuring Mark Hoffman. The ensuing police investigation leads to the arrest of Mark Hoffman for these murders, as well as forgery.
November 16 - When 1800 staff of Baragwanath hospital in Soweto, South Africa go on strike for better pay, they are dismissed and troops called in to help run the hospital.
November 19 - Pennzoil wins a US$10.53 billion verdict from Texaco in the largest civil verdict in US history (Texaco established a signed contract to buy Getty Oil after Pennzoil entered into an unsigned, yet still binding, buyout contract with Getty).
August 19 - David Letterman interrupts the Today Show with a megaphone while both shows are on the air. Letterman leaned out the window of his building and announced "My name is Larry Grossman (then president of NBC News) and I'm not wearing any pants!". The Today Show was taping an interview several stories below.
NBC becomes the first commercial television network to use satellite interconnection for its stations.
