1985-March

• March 3 – An 8.0 on the Richter magnitude scale earthquake hits Santiago and Valparaíso leaving 177 dead, 2,575 hurt, 142,489 destroyed houses and about a million people houseless
• March 4 – The Food and Drug Administration approves a blood test for AIDS, used since then to screen all blood donations in the United States.
• March 8 – A car bomb planted in Beirut by CIA mercenaries attempts to kill Islamic cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah and kills more than 80 people, injuring 200.
• March 11
  • Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and de facto leader of the Soviet Union.
  • Mohammed Al Fayed buys the London-based department store company Harrods.
• March 14 – Five lionesses at the Singapore Zoo are put on birth control after the lion population increases from 2 to 16.
• March 15 – Vice-President Jose Sarney takes the oath as the first civilian president of Brazil in 21 years, as the elected president Tancredo Neves had become severely ill on the day before.
• March 16 – Associated Press newsman Terry Anderson is taken hostage in Beirut (he is eventually released on December 4, 1991).
• March 17 – Expo '85, a World's Fair, is held in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan, until September 16.
• March 21 – Canadian paraplegic athlete and activist Rick Hansen sets out on his 40,000 km, 26 month Man in Motion tour which raises $26M for spinal cord research and quality of life initiatives.
• March 23 – OCAM dissolved.
• March 25 – The 57th Academy Awards are held at in Los Angeles, California with Amadeus winning Best Picture.
• March 31 – WrestleMania debuts at Madison Square Garden.