On this day

July 16, 1985

Revisit the news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.

Historical Context for July 16, 1985

In 1985, the world population was approximately 4,868,943,465 people[†]

Notable Births

1985Mārtiņš Kravčenko, Latvian basketball player[†]

Mārtiņš Kravčenko is a Latvian professional basketball player who plays the guard position and plays for Latvian Basketball League club BK Jēkabpils. Most of his career he spent at BK Barons which in 2008 won the Latvian Basketball League and FIBA EuroCup championships.

Notable Deaths

Heinrich Böll

1985Heinrich Böll, German novelist and short story writer, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1917)[†]

Heinrich Theodor Böll was a German writer. Considered one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers, Böll received the Georg Büchner Prize (1967) and the Nobel Prize for Literature (1972).

Wayne King

1985Wayne King, American saxophonist, songwriter, and bandleader (born 1901)[†]

Harold Wayne King was an American musician, songwriter, and bandleader with a long association with both NBC and CBS. He was referred to as "the Waltz King" because much of his most popular music involved waltzes; "The Waltz You Saved for Me" was his standard set-closing song in live performance and on numerous radio broadcasts at the height of his career. King's innovations included converting Carrie Jacobs-Bond's "I Love You Truly" from its original 24 time over to 34.

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Headlines from July 16, 1985

40 YEARS AGO, THE BOMB: THE QUESTIONS CAME LATER

By William J. Broad

THE creative urge that shook the earth 40 years ago with the detonation of the first atom bomb is today in the midst of a renaissance. According to weapon scientists and Federal officials, new kinds of nuclear arms are being imagined, developed and exploded at a furious pace.

Science Desk1810 words

EDUCATION;TEXAS EDUCATOR TALKS OF ELITICISM

By Robert Reinhold

GREAT universities seem to go through Camelot periods, heady eras in which they flourish. Over the last decade it has been the turn of the University of Texas at Austin for Camelot, a headlong rush into academic prestige fueled by the state's energy boom. The man who has presided over much of this flowering, Peter T. Flawn, will leave next month after six years as president of the state's premier public institution, proud of his success at raising the caliber of students and faculty, but also frustrated.

Science Desk1028 words

Quotation of the Day

By Unknown Author

There is a greater than 50 percent chance that the President has no cancer whatsoever, that there are no cancer cells in his body, and he is completely cured.'' - Dr. Steven Rosenberg, a member of President Reagan's surgical team. [A1:6.]

Metropolitan Desk42 words

KOCH CONTRIBUTIONS TOP $5 MILLION, LEAVING RIVALS IN PRIMARY FARBEHIND

By Frank Lynn

Mayor Koch has raised $5,032,983 in campaign contributions, far more than his two chief rivals, according to financial reports filed with the Board of Elections yesterday. The Mayor has raised nearly nine times more than City Council President Carol Bellamy and almost 50 times more than Assemblyman Herman D. Farrell Jr., his major challengers, the records show.

Metropolitan Desk524 words

MEDICINE IN CITY IS SHIFTING FOCUS FROM HOSPITALS

By Ronald Sullivan

As large New York teaching hospitals cut back, health officials say, medicine and surgery are being moved back toward the doctor's office, where modern medical practice began a century ago as a cottage industry. More and more physicians, they say, are shifting to private offices and clinics, nursing homes, group practices, health maintenance organizations and small community hospitals -all of them promising a less expensive and less complicated level of care that health experts say New York needs more of.

Metropolitan Desk2594 words

BIGGEST DROP IN 2 YEARS

By Gary Klott

The Commerce Department said yesterday that business inventories fell four-tenths of 1 percent in May from the previous month, the steepest decline in more than two years, but economists found the news encouraging. The decline was interpreted as a sign of caution on the part of businesses. Economists explained, however, that because businesses have apparently been carefully monitoring their stockpiles, the chances of an economic downturn in the near future have been limited.

Financial Desk471 words

IN HAITI, SOME DISSIDENTS BREATHE A LITTLE EASIER

By Joseph B. Treaster

In the last few weeks, Hubert DeRonceray, a 53-year-old sociologist, has become involved in a public dispute with President Jean-Claude Duvalier. First, Mr. DeRonceray, a former Government minister, tried unsuccessfully to hold a protest march against the 28-year-long dynastic rule of the Duvalier family. Then, Mr. Duvalier tried to embarrass him by republishing in the Government-controlled press an encomium that Mr. DeRonceray wrote on the death of the President's father, Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier.

Foreign Desk1064 words

EARLY JULY CAR SALES DOWN 15%

By John Holusha

Sales of domestically produced automobiles declined 15 percent in the first 10 days of July, according to reports today from the major automobile companies. The drop pushed the annual selling rate down to 7.5 million units, from an unusually strong 9.2 million rate in early July last year. But sales of light trucks, which include mini-vans and sports utility vehicles that are often substitutes for cars, increased 10.8 percent in the period, continuing the robust performance of this segment of the market.

Financial Desk776 words

A NEW POLICE STATION, A NEW PERSPECTIVE

By Jane Gross

Lieut. Kenneth deSanctis of the 19th Precinct squirmed at the memory of the well-dressed dowager, there to report the loss of a $40,000 brooch, sitting in a station house where the ceilings had caved in, the windows were filthy and telephone wires snaked across the floor. Police Officer Tony Ciffo, also of the 19th Precinct, chafed at the recollection of sweltering without air-conditioning in a building that was home to mice so bold they defied even the men in blue.

Metropolitan Desk1256 words

MT. WILSON'S TELESCOPE: LIGHTS OUT

By George Alexander

THE evening had all the trappings of a retirement party: More than two dozen guests drank champagne and offered toasts to the honoree's many decades of distinguished service. After 68 years, almost 25,000 nights of viewing that had yielded some of the most profound discoveries of modern science, it was the last night of scheduled operations for the 100-inch telescope of the Mount Wilson Observatory. One by one the party guests, including astronomers, technicians and officials of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the nonprofit agency that has operated the Mount Wilson observatory for more than 80 years, departed into the night. Soon only Dr. Geoff Marcy, assistant professor of astronomy at San Francisco State University, and a skeleton technical staff remained behind to use the telescope one last time. Just before dawn broke over Southern California's San Gabriel Mountains on June 26, Dr. Marcy and the crew secured the instrument, covered its lenses, boarded up some entrances and turned out the lights on an era of science.

Science Desk1145 words