1885

Events

January

• January 3–4 - Sino-French War: Battle of Núi Bop - French troops under General Oscar de Négrier defeat a numerically superior Qing Chinese force, in northern Vietnam.
• January 17 - Mahdist War in Sudan: Battle of Abu Klea - British troops defeat Mahdist forces.
• January 20 - American inventor LaMarcus Adna Thompson patents a roller coaster.
• January 24 - Irish rebels damage Westminster Hall and the Tower of London with dynamite.
• January 26 - Mahdist War in Sudan: Troops loyal to Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad conquer Khartoum; British commander Charles George Gordon is killed.

February

• February 5 - King Leopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo Free State, as a personal possession.
• February 9 - The first Japanese arrive in Hawaii.
• February 16 - Charles Dow publishes the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The index stands at a level of 62.76, and represents the dollar average of 14 stocks: 12 railroads and two leading American industries.
• February 20 - The Richmond Football Club is officially formed at the Royal Hotel in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond, Victoria.
• February 21 - United States President Chester A. Arthur dedicates the Washington Monument.
• February 23
• * Sino-French War: Battle of Đồng Đăng - France gains an important victory over China, in the Tonkin region of modern-day Vietnam.
• * An English executioner fails after several attempts to hang John Babbacombe Lee, sentenced for the murder of his employer Emma Keyse; Lee's sentence is commuted to life imprisonment.
• February 26 - The final act of the Berlin Conference regulates European colonization and trade, in the "scramble for Africa".
• February 28 - February concludes without having a full moon.

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

• April 2 - Frog Lake Massacre: Cree warriors led by Wandering Spirit kill 9 settlers at Frog Lake in the Northwest Territories.
• April 3 - Gottlieb Daimler is granted a German patent, for his single-cylinder, water-cooled engine design.
• April 11 - Luton Town Football Club is created by the merger of Wanderers F.C. and Luton Excelsior F.C. in England.
• April 14 - Sino-French War: A French victory at Kép causes China to withdraw its forces from Tonkin, in the final engagement of the conflict.
• April 22 - Dvořák's Symphony No. 7 is premiered at St James's Hall in London with the composer himself conducting.
• April 30 - A bill is signed in the New York State legislature, forming the Niagara Falls State Park.

May

• May 2
• * Good Housekeeping magazine goes on sale for the first time in the United States.
• * North-West Rebellion: Battle of Cut Knife - Cree and Assiniboine warriors win their largest victory over Canadian forces.
• May 9–12 - North-West Rebellion: Battle of Batoche - Canadian government forces inflict a decisive defeat on Métis rebels, bringing an end to their part in the rebellion.
• May 19 - After a three-month legislative battle in the Illinois General Assembly, John A. Logan is re-elected to the United States Senate.
• May 20 - The first public train departs Swanage railway station, on the newly built Swanage Railway in England.

June

• June 2 - Dunfermline Athletic F.C. is officially formed at the Old Inn, Dunfermline, Scotland.
• June 3 - Battle of Loon Lake: The Canadian North-West Mounted Police and allies force a party of Plains Cree warriors to surrender in the last skirmish of the North-West Rebellion, and the last battle fought on Canadian soil.
• June 17 - The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.
• June 23 - Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

July

• July 6 - Louis Pasteur and Émile Roux successfully test their rabies vaccine. The patient is Joseph Meister, a boy who was bitten by a rabid dog.
• July 14 - Sarah E. Goode is the first African-American woman to apply for and receive a patent, for the invention of the hideaway bed.
• July 15 - The Reservation at Niagara Falls opens, enabling access to all for free. Thomas V. Welch is the first Superintendent of the Park.
• July 16 - BHP (Broken Hill Proprietary), a worldwide mining and natural gas producer is founded in New South Wales, Australia.
• July 20 - The Football Association recognises professional players in England.
• July 28 - Louis Riel's trial for treason begins in Regina.
• July - Japan Brewery, predecessor of Kirin Holdings, is founded in Yokohama, Japan.

August

• August 19 - S Andromedae, the only supernova seen in the Andromeda Galaxy so far by astronomers, and the first ever noted outside the Milky Way, is discovered.
• August 29 - Gottlieb Daimler is granted a German patent for the Daimler Reitwagen, regarded as the first motorcycle, which he has produced with Wilhelm Maybach.

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

• October 3 - Millwall F.C. is founded by workers on the Isle of Dogs in London, as Millwall Rovers.
• October 10 - The largest ever explosion for a non-military purpose is set off in the East River of New York City as part of a scheme for the removal of Hell Gate rocks by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.
• October 12 - The city of Fresno, California, is incorporated.
• October 13 - The Georgia Institute of Technology is established in Atlanta as the Georgia School of Technology.
• October 25 - Brahms's 4 (Brahms)|Symphony No. 4] is premiered in Meiningen, Germany, with the composer himself conducting.

November

• November 7 - Canadian Pacific Railway: At Craigellachie, British Columbia, the last spike is driven on a railway extending across Canada. Prime Minister John A. Macdonald considers the project to be vital to Canada, due to the exponentially greater potential for military mobility.
• November 14-28 - Serbo-Bulgarian War: Serbia declares war against Bulgaria, but is defeated in the Battle of Slivnitsa on November 17-19.
• November 16 - Louis Riel, Canadian rebel leader of the Métis, is executed for high treason.
• November 27 - St. Helena Anti-Chinese League is formed in Napa County, California.
• November - The Third Anglo-Burmese War begins.

December

• December 1 - Dr Pepper is served for the first time.
• December 28 - 72 Indian lawyers, academics and journalists gather in Bombay to form the Congress Party.

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

• March 6 - Ring Lardner, American writer
• March 7 - John Tovey, British admiral of the fleet
• March 11 - Sir Malcolm Campbell, English land, water racer
• March 14 - Raoul Lufbery, French-born American World War I pilot
• March 23 - Mollie McNutt, Australian poet
• March 27 - Julio Lozano Díaz, President of Honduras
• March 31 - Jules Pascin, Bulgarian painter

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

• August 1 - George de Hevesy, Hungarian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate

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

• Geza von Hoffmann, Austrian-Hungarian eugenicist and writer
• Alessandro Tonini, Italian aeronautical engineer and aircraft designer and manufacturer

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

• September 2-September 7 - The film Back to the Future Part III takes place during this time. Dr. Emmett Brown is initially murdered by List of [Back to the Future characters|Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen] in Hill Valley, California ; however, Marty McFly later prevents this murder.
• The stage "Bury My Shell at Wounded Knee", in the 1992 video game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, is set in this year.
• The Nickelodeon TV movie, Lost in the West, takes place in this year.
• The plot of An American Tail is set in this period.
• Stephen Gordon, protagonist of The Well of Loneliness, is born on 24th December 1885.