1886

Events

January

• January 1 - Upper Burma is formally annexed to British Burma, following its conquest in the Third Anglo-Burmese War of November 1885.
• January 5-9 - Robert Louis Stevenson's novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is published in New York and London.
• January 16 - A resolution is passed in the German Parliament to condemn the Prussian deportations, the politically motivated mass expulsion of ethnic Poles and Jews from Prussia, initiated by Otto von Bismarck.
• January 18 - Modern field hockey is born with the formation of The Hockey Association in England.
• January 29 - Karl Benz patents the first successful gasoline-driven automobile, the Benz Patent-Motorwagen.

February

• February 6-9 - Seattle riot of 1886: Anti-Chinese sentiments result in riots in Seattle, Washington.
• February 8 - The West End Riots following a popular meeting in Trafalgar Square, London.
• February 11 - The Anti-Chinese League of the City of Napa is formed.
• February 14 - The first trainload of oranges leaves Los Angeles via the United States transcontinental railroad.

March

• March 1 - The Anglo-Chinese School is founded by Bishop William Fitzjames Oldham at 70 Amoy Street, Singapore.
• March 3 - The Treaty of Bucharest ends the Serbo-Bulgarian War in the Balkans.
• March 16 - A law establishing the Kiel Canal is adopted in the German Empire.
• March 17 - Carrollton Massacre: 20 African Americans are killed in Mississippi.
• March 29 - Wilhelm Steinitz becomes the first recognized World Chess Champion.
• March - Gottlieb Daimler assembles his first automobile, in Germany.

April

• April 4 - William Ewart Gladstone introduces the First Irish Home Rule Bill in the Parliament of the United Kingdom; it is defeated on June 8.
• April 6 - The settlement of Vancouver, British Columbia, is incorporated.
• April 24 - Father Augustine Tolton, the first Roman Catholic priest from the United States to identify himself publicly as African American, is ordained in Rome.
• April - The Swedish Dress Reform Society is established.

May

• May 1 - A general strike begins in the United States, which escalates on May 4 into the Haymarket affair in Chicago, and eventually wins the eight-hour day for workers.
• May 4 - Emile Berliner starts work that leads to the invention of the gramophone.
• May 8 - American pharmacist Dr. John Pemberton invents a carbonated beverage that will be named 'Coca-Cola'.
• May 10 - Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that corporations have the same rights as living persons.
• May 15 - Portugal and France agree to regulate the borders of their colonies in Guinea.
• May 17 - Motherwell Football Club is founded in Scotland.
• May 29 - John Pemberton begins to advertise Coca-Cola.

June

• June 2 - U.S. President Grover Cleveland marries Frances Folsom in the White House, becoming the only President of the United States to wed in the executive mansion. She is 27 years his junior.
• June 3 - Uganda Martyrs: Charles Lwanga, 12 other Catholic boys and men, and 9 Anglicans, are burned to death, at the orders of Kabaka Mwanga II of Buganda in Namugongo.

• June 10 - The Mount Tarawera volcano erupts in New Zealand, resulting in the deaths of over 150 people and the destruction of the famous Pink and White Terraces.
• June 12 - King Ludwig II of Bavaria is detained as part of a deposition, drowning the following day under mysterious circumstances. Six weeks later his unfinished Neuschwanstein Castle is opened to the public.
• June 13
• * The Great Vancouver Fire devastates much of Vancouver, British Columbia.
• * A large log jam forms on the St. Croix River near Taylors Falls, Minnesota
• June 25 - Arturo Toscanini makes his conducting debut, with an Italian opera company visiting Rio de Janeiro.
• June 30 - The Royal Holloway College for women is opened by Queen Victoria, near London, England.

July

• July 3 - Karl Benz officially unveils the Benz Patent Motorwagen.
• July 9 - American inventor Charles Martin Hall files a patent for his inexpensive method of refining aluminium ; independently and near-simultaneously discovered in France by Paul Héroult it becomes known as the Hall–Héroult process.
• July 23 - Steve Brodie is reported to have made a jump from the Brooklyn Bridge, a claim subsequently disputed.
• July 25 - Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

August

• August 13 - Nagasaki Incident: Chinese troops riot during shore leave in Nagasaki, Japan.
• August 19 - The Christian Union (Church of God) is established in Monroe County, Tennessee
• August 20 - A massive hurricane demolishes the town of Indianola, Texas.
• August 31 - The 7.0 Charleston earthquake affects southeastern South Carolina, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X ; 60 people are killed, and damage is estimated at $5–6 million.

September

• September 1 - Grasshopper Club Zürich is founded as the first football club in the Swiss city of Zürich by English students.
• September 4 - American Indian Wars: After almost 30 years of fighting, Apache leader Geronimo surrenders, with his last band of warriors, to General Nelson Miles, at Skeleton Canyon in Arizona.
• September 9 - The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works is signed.
• September 21 - American physicist William Stanley Jr. patents the first practical alternating current transformer device, the induction coil.

October

• October 7 - Spain abolishes slavery in Cuba.
• October 24 - The British merchant vessel Normanton sinks off the coast of Japan, triggering the Normanton incident.
• October 28 - U.S. President Grover Cleveland dedicates the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France, in New York Harbor. The ensuing spontaneous celebration in New York City leads to the first ticker tape parade.

November

• November 1 - The biggest Buddhist boys' school in Sri Lanka, Ananda College, is founded in Colombo.
• November 3 - In the British Raj, what will become one of the biggest boys' schools in Pakistan, Aitchison College, Lahore, is founded under the auspices of Sir Charles Umpherston Aitchison.
• November 11 - Heinrich Hertz verifies the existence of electromagnetic waves, at the University of Karlsruhe.
• November 14 - German inventor Friedrich Soennecken first develops the hole puncher, a type of office tool capable of punching small holes in paper.
• November 15 - The Werkstätte für Feinmechanik und Elektrotechnik is founded in Baden-Württemberg, Germany by Robert Bosch. The company will later become the home appliance and power tool brand, Robert Bosch GmbH.
• November 30 - The Folies Bergère stages its first revue in Paris.
• November - The extremely harsh winter of 1886–87 in the United States begins, killing tens of thousands of cattle on the Great Plains of North America.

December

• December 11 - London Association football club Arsenal, founded as Dial Square by workers at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, Arsenal F.C. (1886–1966)|play their first match]. The club is renamed Royal Arsenal soon afterwards, supposedly on December 25.
• December 17 - English adventurer Thomas Stevens concludes the first circumnavigation by bicycle in Yokohama, having set out on his penny-farthing from San Francisco in 1884.

Date unknown

• Addis Ababa is founded in the Ethiopian Empire.
• The village of Skorenovac is founded in Serbia, mostly by Székely Hungarians.
• Scotch whisky distiller William Grant & Sons is founded.
• Yorkshire Tea is established in Harrogate, England.
• Johnson & Johnson, which becomes a multinational brand, begins manufacturing healthcare products in New Jersey, United States.
• Avon Products, a worldwide cosmetics and household brand is founded in New York City, United States.
• Food product and processing brand Del Monte Foods is founded in California, United States.
• Emily Ruete publishes her landmark memoir, Memoirs of an Arabian Princess: An Autobiography.
• Bedford Rugby Club is formed in England.

Births

January–February

• January 2 - Apsley Cherry-Garrard, English polar explorer with the Terra Nova expedition and author of The Worst Journey in the World
• January 2 - Florence Lawrence, Canadian-born American actress
• January 2 - Elise Ottesen-Jensen, Norwegian-Swedish feminist
• January 5 - Markus Reiner, Israeli scientist
• January 7 - Amedeo Maiuri, Italian archaeologist
• January 11
• * George Zucco, English–born American character actor
• * Chester Conklin, American actor
• January 13 - Sophie Tucker, Russian-born American singer, comedian
• January 14 - Hugh Lofting, English-born American author
• January 17 - Joe Masseria, Italian-born American gangster
• January 25 - Wilhelm Furtwängler, German conductor
• January 27 - Frank Nitti, Italian-born American gangster
• January 28 - Hidetsugu Yagi, Japanese electrical engineer
• January 31 - Alfonso López Pumarejo, 14th and 16th President of Colombia
• February 2 - Frank Lloyd, English-born American film director, scriptwriter and producer
• February 4 - Edward Sheldon, American playwright
• February 7 - Yehezkel Abramsky, Russian-born British rabbi
• February 8 - Charlie Ruggles, American actor
• February 9 - Edwin Maxwell, Irish actor
• February 12 - Margarita Fischer, American silent film actress
• February 17 - Aeneas Francon Williams, English missionary, Church of Scotland minister, writer and poet
• February 19 - José Abad Santos, Filipino jurist, lawyer
• February 22 - Oskar Kokoschka, Austrian artist and poet
• February 27 - Hugo Black, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

March–April

• March 2
• * Willis H. O'Brien, American stop motion animator
• * Vittorio Pozzo, Italian football player and manager
• * Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg, German general
• March 4 - Kazimierz Świtalski, Polish diplomat, politician, soldier and military officer, 18th Prime Minister of Poland
• March 6
• * Saburō Kurusu, Japanese diplomat
• * Nella Walker, American actress, vaudevillian
• March 7 - Virginia Pearson, American silent film actress
• March 8 - Edward Calvin Kendall, American chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• March 9 - Robert L. Eichelberger, American general
• March 11 - Edward Rydz-Śmigły, Polish politician, Marshal of Poland
• March 15 - Sergey Kirov, Soviet revolutionary
• March 18
• * Edward Everett Horton, American actor
• * Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière, German U-boat ace
• March 19 - Giuseppe Mario Bellanca, Italian-born American airplane designer, manufacturer
• March 20 - Grace Brown, American murder victim whose story became a famous court case
• March 22 - Kálmán Darányi, 31st Prime Minister of Hungary
• March 24 - Edward Weston, American photographer
• March 25 - Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople
• March 27 - Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, German architect
• April 4 - William R. Munroe, American admiral
• April 5 - Gustavo Jiménez, President of Peru
• April 14 - Ernst Robert Curtius, Alsatian philologist
• April 16
• * Ernst Thälmann, German Communist leader
• * Margaret Woodrow Wilson, American singer; Presidential daughter
• April 26 - Ma Rainey, American singer
• April 30 - Dick Elliott, American actor

May–June

• May 2 - Gottfried Benn, German poet
• May 3 - Marcel Dupré, French composer
• May 5 - Émile Eddé, 4th Prime Minister and 3rd President of Lebanon
• May 10
• * Karl Barth, Swiss Protestant theologian
• * Felix Manalo, Filipino Executive Minister of the Iglesia ni Cristo
• * Olaf Stapledon, British author, philosopher
• May 17 - King Alfonso XIII of Spain
• May 18 - Ture Nerman, Swedish communist leader
• May 20 - John Jacob Astor, 1st Baron Astor of Hever, American-born British businessman
• May 26 - Al Jolson, American entertainer
• June 6 - William A. Glassford, American admiral
• June 7 - Henri Coandă, Romanian aerodynamics pioneer
• June 9 - Kosaku Yamada, Japanese composer, conductor
• June 18 - George Mallory, English climber
• June 23 - Olaf M. Hustvedt, American admiral
• June 24 - Ion Gigurtu, 42nd Prime Minister of Romania
• June 25 - Henry H. Arnold, American general, aviation pioneer
• June 28 - Hitoshi Imamura, Japanese general
• June 29 - Robert Schuman, German-French politician, a founding father of the European Union

July–August

• July 3
• * Giovanni Battista Caproni, Italian aeronautical, civil, and electrical engineer, aircraft designer, and industrialist
• * Raymond A. Spruance, American admiral, ambassador
• July 5 - Willem Drees, Dutch politician and historian, 30th Prime Minister of the Netherlands
• July 6 - Lou Skuce, Canadian cartoonist
• July 12 - Jean Hersholt, Danish-born American actor
• July 15 - William Edmunds, Italian stage, screen character actor
• July 18 - Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., American general
• July 23 - Walter H. Schottky, German physicist
• July 24 - Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Japanese writer
• July 25 - Bror von Blixen-Finecke, Swedish big-game hunter
• July 31 - Fred Quimby, American film producer
• August 2 - John Alexander Douglas McCurdy, Canadian aviation pioneer, Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia
• August 6
• * Florence Goodenough, American child psychologist
• * Inez Milholland, American suffragist, labor lawyer, World War I correspondent and public speaker
• August 12 - Campbell Tait, British admiral and Governor of Southern Rhodesia
• August 20 - Paul Tillich, German-American Christian existentialist philosopher, theologian
• August 26 - Ceferino Namuncurá, Argentine Roman Catholic lay brother and blessed
• August 27
• * Nicolette Bruining, Dutch theologian, humanitarian
• * Rebecca Clarke, English composer, violist
• * Eric Coates, English composer
• August 28 - Andrew Higgins, American boatbuilder, industrialist

September–October

• September 1
• * Tarsila do Amaral, Brazilian modernist painter
• * Othmar Schoeck, Swiss composer
• September 5 - Nell Brinkley, American illustrator, comic artist
• September 8 - Siegfried Sassoon, British poet
• September 11 - Khaled Chehab, 2-Time Prime Minister of Lebanon
• September 13 - Robert Robinson, British chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
• September 14 - Jan Masaryk, Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia
• September 16 - Jean Arp, Alsatian sculptor, painter and poet
• September 20 - Charles Williams, English novelist, playwright, poet, theologian and critic
• September 24
• * Edward Bach, English metaphysician, homeopath
• * Roberto María Ortiz, President of Argentina
• September 25 - Nobutake Kondō, Japanese admiral
• September 26 - Archibald Hill, English physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate
• September 30 - Wilhelm Marschall, German admiral
• October 3 - Alain-Fournier, French writer
• October 6 - Edwin Fischer, Swiss pianist, conductor
• October 11 - Conrad Helfrich, Dutch admiral
• October 14 - Salvador Moreno Fernández, Spanish admiral and politician
• October 15 - Jonas H. Ingram, American admiral
• October 16 - David Ben-Gurion, Polish-born first Prime Minister of Israel
• October 17 - Spring Byington, American actress
• October 22 - Oscar Griswold, American general
• October 30 - Zoë Akins, American playwright, poet and author

November–December

• November 1 - Hermann Broch, Austrian author
• November 2 - Gheorghe Tătărescu, 2-time prime minister of Romania
• November 6 - André Marty, French Communist Party leader
• November 9 - Ed Wynn, American actor
• November 10 - Walden L. Ainsworth, American admiral
• November 11 - Ali Jawdat al-Aiyubi, 11th Prime Minister of Iraq
• November 12 - Infante Alfonso, Duke of Galliera, Spanish prince, military aviator
• November 15 - René Guénon, French-Egyptian author
• November 17 - Walter Terence Stace, British philosopher
• November 18 - Ferenc Münnich, 47th Prime Minister of Hungary
• November 20 - Karl von Frisch, Austrian zoologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• November 26 - Margaret C. Anderson, American publisher, editor
• December 2 - Lester P. Barlow, American inventor and engineer
• December 3 - Manne Siegbahn, Swedish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• December 5
• *Masakazu Kawabe, Japanese general
• *Rose Wilder Lane, American author
• December 8 - Diego Rivera, Mexican painter
• December 10 - Victor McLaglen, English actor, boxer
• December 12 - Owen Moore, Irish-born American actor
• December 18 - Ty Cobb, American baseball player and a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame
• December 25
• *Gotthard Heinrici, German general
• *Kid Ory, American jazz musician
• December 26 - Gyula Gömbös, 30th Prime Minister of Hungary
• December 30 - Austin Osman Spare, English artist, magician

Unknown

• Gabriel of Dionysiou -Greek Orthodod Archimandrite in Mount Athos
• Cola Nicea, Aromanian soldier

Deaths

January–June

• January 16 - Amilcare Ponchielli, Italian composer
• January 18 - Baldassare Verazzi, Italian painter
• January 26 - David Rice Atchison, American politician
• February 9 - Winfield Scott Hancock, Union general of the American Civil War, Democratic political candidate
• February 10 - Laura Don, American actress
• February 12 - Horatio Seymour, 18th Governor of New York, 1868 Democratic Party presidential nominee
• February 15 - Edward Cardwell, 1st Viscount Cardwell, British politician
• February 18 - Dave Rudabaugh, American outlaw, gunfighter
• February 24 - Hugh Stowell Brown, Manx preacher
• March 9 - William S. Clark, American chemist
• March 17 - Pierre-Jules Hetzel, French editor, publisher
• April 9 - Joseph Victor von Scheffel, German poet
• April 16 - Andrew Nicholl, Northern Irish painter
• April 20 - Louis Melsens, Belgian chemist and physicist
• April 27 - Henry Hobson Richardson, American architect
• May 9 - Facundo Bacardí, Cuban rum manufacturer
• May 15 - Emily Dickinson, American poet
• May 17 - John Deere, American inventor
• May 23 - Leopold von Ranke, German historian
• June 13
• * Bernhard von Gudden, German neuroanatomist and psychiatrist
• * King Ludwig II of Bavaria
• June 19 - Sir Charles Trevelyan, British civil servant and colonial administrator
• June 21 - Daniel Dunglas Home, Scottish medium

July–December

• July 1 - Otto Wilhelm Hermann von Abich, German geologist
• July 4
• * Poundmaker, Aboriginal Canadian leader
• * Prince Arisugawa Takahito, Japanese Prince
• July 16 - Ned Buntline, American publisher, dime novelist and publicist
• July 25 - Eliza Lynch, First Lady of Paraguay
• July 31 - Franz Liszt, Hungarian pianist, composer
• August 4 - Samuel J. Tilden, 25th Governor of New York, 1876 Democratic Party presidential nominee
• August 9
• * Sir Samuel Ferguson, Northern Irish poet, artist
• * Bill Smith, Major League Baseball player
• August 11 - Lydia Koidula, Estonian poet
• August 16 - Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Indian spiritual figure
• August 30 - Ferris Jacobs Jr., American politician
• September 3 - William W. Snow, American politician
• September 4 - Benjamin F. Cheatham, Confederate general
• September 14 - Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard, American land speculator
• September 25 - Hannah T. King, British-born American writer and pioneer
• October 6 - Edward William Godwin, English architect
• October 8 - Austin F. Pike, American politician from New Hampshire
• October 9 - Jean-Jacques Uhrich, French general
• October 10 - David Levy Yulee, American politician, US Senator from Florida
• November 4 - Sir James Martin, 4th Premier of New South Wales
• November 18 - Chester A. Arthur, 21st President of the United States
• November 20 - William Bliss Baker, American painter
• November 21 - Charles Francis Adams Sr., American historical editor, politician and diplomat
• December 8
• * Isaac Lea, American conchologist, geologist and publisher
• * William Fraser Tolmie, Scottish-Canadian scientist, politician
• December 16 - Josef Drásal, the tallest Czech
• December 26 - John A. Logan, American soldier, political leader

Date unknown

• Harriet Bates, American author