Coca-Cola markets a controversial new formulation of its brand-name soft drink, but after sales plummet, it brings back the original, now dubbed “Coke Classic.” Elsewhere that year:

• Mikhail Gorbachev succeeds Konstantin Chernenko as chairman of the Soviet Union’s Communist Party.

• Retailer Montgomery Ward quits the catalog and mailorder business after 113 years.

• Divers find the hull of the luxury liner Titanic, which hit an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic in 1912. The vessel was in 12,000 ft. of water.

• Pete Rose surpasses Ty Cobb’s all-time record for career base hits, singling for the 4,129th time.