1885
Events
January
February
March
- March 3 - A subsidiary of the American Bell Telephone Company, American Telephone and Telegraph, is incorporated in New York.
- March 7 - The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Madrid is founded.
- March 14 - Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Mikado opens, at the Savoy Theatre in London.
- March 26
- * Prussian deportations: The Prussian government, motivated by Otto von Bismarck, expels all ethnic Poles and Jews without German citizenship from Prussia.
- * The North-West Rebellion in Canada by the Métis people, led by Louis Riel, begins with the Battle of Duck Lake.
- * First legal cremation in England: widowed painter Jeanette Pickersgill of London, "well known in literary and scientific circles", is cremated by the Cremation Society at Woking, Surrey.
- March 30 - The Battle for Kushka triggers the Panjdeh Incident, which nearly gives rise to war between the British Empire and Russian Empire.
- March 31 - The United Kingdom establishes the Bechuanaland Protectorate.
April
May
June
September
- September 2 - The Rock Springs massacre occurs in Rock Springs, Wyoming; 150 white miners attack their Chinese coworkers, killing 28, wounding 15, and forcing several hundred more out of town.
- September 6 - Eastern Rumelia declares its union with Bulgaria, completing the unification of Bulgaria.
- September 8 - Saint Thomas Academy is founded in Minnesota.
- September 12 - Arbroath F.C. defeats Bon Accord F.C. in Scotland, 36-0, the highest score ever in professional football.
- September 15 - A train wreck of the P. T. Barnum Circus kills giant elephant Jumbo, at St. Thomas, Ontario.
- September 18
- * The union of Eastern Rumelia with Bulgaria is proclaimed at Plovdiv.
- * Five Chinese people Pierce City lynching|were lynched] outside of Pierce City in the Idaho Territory of the United States.
- September 30 - A British force abolishes the Boer republic of Stellaland, and adds it to British Bechuanaland.
October
December
Date unknown
- Karl Benz produces the Benz Patent-Motorwagen in Mannheim, regarded as the first automobile.
- John Kemp Starley demonstrates the Rover safety bicycle in Coventry, regarded as the first practical modern bicycle.
- The Home Insurance Building in Chicago, designed by William Le Baron Jenney, is completed. With ten floors and a fireproof weight-bearing metal frame, it is regarded as the first skyscraper.
- Bicycle Playing Cards are first produced in the United States.
- The Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association is established in the United Kingdom, to provide charitable assistance.
- Camp Dudley, the oldest continually running boys' camp in the United States, is founded.
- John Ormsby publishes his new English translation of Don Quixote, acclaimed as the most scholarly made up to that time. It will remain in print through the 20th century.
- Michigan Technological University opens its doors for the first time, in the future Houghton County Fire Hall.
- Chuo Law College, as predecessor of Chuo University, founded in Kanda, Tokyo, Japan.
- Before November 1 – More than 24,000 Christians are killed, 225 churches burnt, seventeen orphanages and ten convents destroyed in Cochinchina.
Births
January
- January 1 - Winifred Greenwood, American silent film actress
- January 6 - Florence Turner, American actress
- January 8 - John Curtin, 14th Prime Minister of Australia
- January 11
- * Jack Hoxie, American actor, rodeo performer
- * Alice Paul, American women's rights activist
- January 12
- * Harry Benjamin, American endocrinologist, sexologist
- * Claude Fuess, American author, historian and headmaster
- January 14 - Constantin Sănătescu, 44th prime minister of Romania
- January 16 - Zhou Zuoren, Chinese writer
- January 17 - Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, German general and war criminal
- January 21 - Umberto Nobile, Italian aviator and explorer
- January 25 - Roy Geiger, American general
- January 26 - Harry Ricardo, English mechanical engineer, engine pioneer
- January 27
- * Jerome Kern, American composer
- * Harry Ruby, American musician, composer, and writer
- January 28 - Władysław Raczkiewicz, President of Poland
- January 30 - John Henry Towers, U. S.admiral and naval aviation pioneer
February
- February 1 - Friedrich Kellner, German diarist
- February 7
- * Sinclair Lewis, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate
- * Hugo Sperrle, German field marshal
- February 9 - Alban Berg, Austrian composer
- February 10 - Rupert Downes, Australian general
- February 13
- * George Fitzmaurice, French-American motion picture director
- * Bess Truman, First Lady of the United States
- February 14 - Zengo Yoshida, Japanese admiral
- February 15 - Abraham Grünbaum (activist), German Jewish activist.
- February 21 - Sacha Guitry, Russian-born French dramatist, writer, director, and actor
- February 22 - Pat Sullivan, Australian-born American director, animated film producer
- February 24
- * Chester W. Nimitz, American admiral
- * Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Polish writer, painter
- February 25
- * Princess Alice of Battenberg
- * Fritz Skullerud, Norwegian long-distance runner and station master
- February 26 - Aleksandras Stulginskis, President of Lithuania
March
April
- April 1
- * Wallace Beery, American actor
- * Clementine Churchill, wife of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
- April 3
- * Allan Dwan, Canadian-born American film director
- *Bud Fisher, American cartoonist
- * St John Philby, Ceylonese-born British orientalist
- April 12 - Hermann Hoth, German general
- April 13
- * John Cunningham, British admiral
- * Otto Plath, American father of poet Sylvia Plath, entomologist
- April 15 – Tadeusz Kutrzeba, Polish general
- April 16 - Charles Debbas, 1st president, 5th prime minister of Lebanon
- April 17 - Karen Blixen, Danish author
- April 29 - Frank Jack Fletcher, American admiral
May
- May 2 - Hedda Hopper, American columnist
- May 5 - Agustín Barrios, Paraguayan guitarist, composer
- May 7 - George "Gabby" Hayes, American actor
- May 8 - Thomas B. Costain, Canadian author and journalist
- May 9 - Eduard C. Lindeman, American social worker, author
- May 14 - Otto Klemperer, German conductor
- May 15
- *Robert James Hudson, Governor of Southern Rhodesia
- *Naokuni Nomura, Japanese admiral and Minister of the Navy
- May 20 - Faisal I of Iraq
- May 21 - Sophie, Princess of Albania, consort of William of Wied, Prince of Albania
- May 22 - Toyoda Soemu, Japanese admiral
- May 24 - Susan Sutherland Isaacs, English educational psychologist, psychoanalyst
- May 27 - Richmond K. Turner, American admiral
- May 30 - Arthur E. Andersen, American accountant
June
- June 2 - Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt, German neuropathologist
- June 4 - Arturo Rawson, President of Argentina
- June 5 - Georges Mandel, French politician, World War II hero
- June 9
- * John Edensor Littlewood, British mathematician
- * Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski, Prime Minister of Poland
- * Harry Gribbon, American comedy actor
- June 21 - Harry A. Marmer, Ukrainian-born American mathematician, oceanographer
- June 22 - Milan Vidmar, Slovenian electrical engineer, chess player
- June 27 - Guilhermina Suggia, Portuguese cellist
- June 29 - Izidor Kürschner, Hungarian football player and coach
July
- July 2 - Nikolai Krylenko, Russian Bolshevik and Soviet politician
- July 6 - Ernst Busch, German field marshal
- July 8 - Paul Leni, German film director
- July 9 - Luo Meizhen, Chinese supercentenarian
- July 14 - King Sisavang Vong of Laos
- July 15
- * Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi, 1st prime minister of Sudan
- July 16 - Hakuun Yasutani, Japanese Sōtō rōshi
- July 19
- *Dumitru Coroamă, Romanian soldier and fascist activist
- *Aristides de Sousa Mendes, Portuguese diplomat, humanitarian
- July 20 - Michitarō Komatsubara, Japanese general
- July 28 - Monte Attell, American boxer
- July 29 - Theda Bara, American silent film actress
August
September
- September 6 - Otto Kruger, American actor
- September 7 - Jovita Idar, Mexican-American journalist and political activist
- September 11 - D. H. Lawrence, English novelist
- September 20 - Enrico Mizzi, 6th Prime Minister of Malta
- September 21 - Thomas de Hartmann, Russian composer
- September 22
- * Ben Chifley, 16th Prime Minister of Australia
- * Erich von Stroheim, Austrian-born motion picture actor, director
- September 25 - Mineichi Koga, Japanese admiral
- September 27 - Harry Blackstone Sr., American magician and illusionist
October
- October 3 - Sophie Treadwell, American playwright, journalist
- October 7 - Niels Bohr, Danish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
- October 11 - François Mauriac, French writer, Nobel Prize laureate
- October 19 - Charles E. Merrill, American banker, co-founder of Merrill Lynch
- October 24 - Rachel Katznelson-Shazar, Zionist political figure, wife of third President of Israel
- October 28 - Per Albin Hansson, 2-time prime minister of Sweden
- October 30 - Ezra Pound, American poet
November
- November 1 - Anton Flettner, German aviation engineer, inventor
- November 2 - Harlow Shapley, American astronomer
- November 5 - Will Durant, American philosopher, writer
- November 8 - Tomoyuki Yamashita, Japanese general
- November 9 - Velimir Khlebnikov, Russian poet
- November 11 - George S. Patton, American general
- November 15 - Frederick Handley-Page, British aviation pioneer, aircraft company founder
- November 26 - Heinrich Brüning, Chancellor of Germany 1930-1932
- November 30
- * Albert Kesselring, German field marshal
- * Ma Zhanshan, Chinese general
December
- December 2 - George Minot, American physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- December 13 - Mario Talavera, Mexican songwriter
- December 18 - Walter Crail, American photographer, staff photographer for the Public Ledger
- December 19
- * John Lavarack, Australian general, Governor of Queensland
- * King Oliver, American jazz musician
- December 29, - Eliza Marian Butler, British scholar and writer
Date unknown
Deaths
January–June
- January 11 - Mariano Ospina Rodríguez, President of Colombia
- January 13 - Schuyler Colfax, 17th Vice President of the United States
- January 26 - Charles "Chinese" Gordon, British general
- February 1 - Sidney Gilchrist Thomas, British inventor
- February 7 - Iwasaki Yataro, Japanese industrialist, Founder of Mitsubishi
- February 8 - Nikolai Severtzov, Russian explorer, naturalist
- February 19 - José María Pinedo, Argentinian naval commander
- March 12 - Próspero Fernández Oreamuno, President of Costa Rica
- March 13 - Giorgio Mitrovich, Maltese politician
- March 22 - Sir Harry Smith Parkes, British diplomat
- April 2 - Justo Rufino Barrios, Central American leader
- April 6 - Eduard Vogel von Falckenstein, Prussian general
- April 25 - Queen Emma of Hawaii
- May 2 - Terézia Zakoucs, Hungarian Slovene author
- May 4 - Irvin McDowell, American general
- May 17 - Jonathan Young, United States Navy commodore
- May 19 - Robert Emmet Odlum, American swimming instructor
- May 20 - Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen, 29th United States Secretary of State
- May 22 - Victor Hugo, French author
- June 11 - Amédée Courbet, French admiral
- June 17 - Edwin Freiherr von Manteuffel, German field marshal
- June 22 - Muhammad Ahmad, Sudanese Mahdi
July–December
- July 21 - Karolina Sobańska, Polish noble, agent
- July 23 - Ulysses S. Grant, 63, American Civil War general, 18th President of the United States
- August - Aga Khan II, Iranian religious leader
- August 6 - Emil Zsigmondy, Austrian mountaineer
- August 10 - James W. Marshall, American contractor, builder of Sutter's Mill
- August 29 - Moriz Ludassy, Hungarian journalist
- September 2 - Giuseppe Bonavia, Maltese architect
- September 5 - Zuo Zongtang, Chinese general and politician
- September 6 - Narcís Monturiol, Catalan intellectual, artist and engineer, inventor of the first combustion engine-driven submarine, which was propelled by an early form of air-independent propulsion
- September 15
- * Jumbo, African elephant, star attraction in P. T. Barnum's circus
- * Carl Spitzweg, German romanticist painter
- October 1 - Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, British politician and philanthropist
- October 3 - Mazhar Nanautawi, Indian freedom struggle activist and founding figure of Mazahir Uloom
- October 5 - Thomas C. Durant, American railroad financier
- October 29
- *George B. McClellan, American Civil War general, politician
- * Juan Bautista Topete, Spanish admiral and politician
- November 16 - Louis Riel, Canadian-American leader
- November 8 - John McCullough, Irish-American actor
- November 24 - Nicolás Avellaneda, Argentine president
- November 25
- * King Alfonso XII of Spain
- * Thomas Hendricks, 21st Vice President of the United States
- November 26 - Thomas Andrews, Irish chemist
- December 8 - William Henry Vanderbilt, American entrepreneur
- December 13 - Benjamin Gratz Brown, American politician
- December 15 - Ferdinand II of Portugal, consort of Queen Maria II
Date unknown
- Eugenia Kisimova, Bulgarian feminist, philanthropist and women's rights activist
In fiction