March 18, 1985

Gas cost $1.12 a gallon in the spring of 1985, and the Dow Jones stood at 1,547 — a superpower standoff was playing out in Geneva, where U.S. and Soviet negotiators had returned to arms control talks for the first time in over a year, with President Reagan pressing his Strategic Defense Initiative even as Moscow warned it threatened the stability of nuclear deterrence. On the radio, "We Are The World" by USA for Africa was the year's defining song, a charity single featuring dozens of major artists recorded to raise funds for famine relief, while on television, "Dynasty" drew some of the largest prime-time audiences in the country, following the rivalries of a wealthy Colorado oil family each week. The Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Boston Celtics in six games to claim the NBA championship, and in May, scientists with the British Antarctic Survey published findings confirming the existence of a significant hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica, a discovery that would reshape environmental policy for decades to come.