1884

Events

January

• January 4 - The Fabian Society is founded in London to promote gradualist social progress.
• January 5 - Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera Princess Ida, a satire on feminism, premières at the Savoy Theatre, London.
• January 7 - German microbiologist Robert Koch isolates Vibrio cholerae, the cholera bacillus, working in India.
• January 18 - William Price attempts to cremate his dead baby son, Iesu Grist, in Wales. Later tried and acquitted on the grounds that cremation is not contrary to English law, he is thus able to carry out the ceremony on March 14, setting a legal precedent.
• January - Arthur Conan Doyle's anonymous story "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement" appears in the Cornhill Magazine. Based on the disappearance of the crew of the Mary Celeste in 1872, many of the fictional elements introduced by Doyle come to replace the real events in the popular imagination.

  February

• February 1 - A New English Dictionary on historical principles, part 1, the first fascicle of what will become The Oxford English Dictionary, is published in England.
• February 5 - Derby County Football Club is founded in England.

  March

• March 13 - The Siege of Khartoum begins in the Sudan as part of the Mahdist War: an Egyptian garrison led by British General Charles Gordon and Sudanese civilians are besieged by Mahdist forces; the city falls on January 26, 1885.
• March 28 - Prince Leopold, the youngest son and eighth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, dies, aged 30 in Cannes following a fall complicated by his haemophilia. His son, Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, is born nearly 4 months later.
• March - John Joseph Montgomery conducts the first manned glider flights in the United States near Otay, California.

  April

• April 4 - The Treaty of Valparaiso, an armistice between Chile and Bolivia, ends the War of the Pacific; Bolivia is obliged to cede Antofagasta to Chile, leaving Bolivia as a landlocked country.
• April 20 - Pope Leo XIII publishes the encyclical Humanum genus, denouncing Freemasonry and certain liberal beliefs which he considers to be associated with it.
• April 24
• * A German protectorate is established over South-West Africa.
• * The Colchester earthquake measuring EMS-98 VIII is the UK's most destructive, although no direct fatalities can be confirmed.

  May

• May 1 - The eight-hour workday is first proclaimed by the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in the United States. This date, called May Day or Labour Day, becomes a holiday recognized in almost every industrialized country.
• May 4 - The Panic of 1884 creates a credit shortage that accelerates the current United States economic recession into the Depression of 1882–1885.
• May 16
• * Angelo Moriondo of Turin is granted a patent for an espresso machine.
• * Sweden's Finance Minister Robert Themptander becomes his country's Prime Minister.

  June

• June 4 - The future flag of Estonia is consecrated as the flag of the Estonian Students' Society.
• June 13 - LaMarcus Adna Thompson opens the "Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway" at Coney Island, New York City.
• June 28 - The Norwegian Association for Women's Rights is founded. Also this year, the Fredrika Bremer Association is founded in Sweden for the same purpose.
• June - The first ascent is made of Castle Mountain in the Canadian Rockies, by geologist Arthur Philemon Coleman.

  July

• July 1 - First International Forestry Exhibition opens in Edinburgh, Scotland.
• July 3 - The Dow Jones Transportation Average, consisting of eleven transportation-related companies, is created in the United States. The index is the oldest stock index to remain in use.
• July 5 - Germany takes possession of Togoland.
• July 7 - Nagasaki Shipyard, predecessor of the Japanese aircraft and shipbuilding business Mitsubishi, is founded on the island of Kyushu.
• July 14 - German administration is established in Cameroon.
• July 23 - The first tennis tournaments, held in the grounds of Shrubland Hall, Leamington Spa, England, are recorded in today's Courier.

  August

• August 5 - The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty is laid on Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor.
• August 10 - An earthquake measuring 5.5 affects a very large portion of the eastern United States. The shock has a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII. Chimneys are toppled in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Property damage is severe in Jamaica, Queens and Amityville, New York.
• August 22 - The Sino-French War breaks out.
• August 23 - Sino-French War: Battle of Fuzhou - French Admiral Amédée Courbet's Far East Squadron virtually destroys China's Fujian Fleet.

  September

• September 5 - Staten Island Academy is founded.
• September 15 - The invention of local anesthesia by ophthalmologist Karl Koller is made public at a medical congress in Heidelberg, Germany.
• September 23–24 - Steamship Arctique runs aground near Cape Virgenes, leading to the discovery of nearby placer gold and beginning the Tierra del Fuego gold rush.

  October

• October 6 - The United States Naval War College is established in Newport, Rhode Island.
• October 18 - The University College of North Wales, Bangor, is founded in the UK.
• October 22
• * The International Meridian Conference meeting in Washington, D.C., fixes the Greenwich meridian as the world's prime meridian.
• * The "Nine Graces", nine women who are the first to be awarded degrees from the Royal University of Ireland, become the first women in the United Kingdom to be awarded degrees. They include Alice Oldham, Isabella Mulvany and Charlotte M. Taylor.
• October 30 - Hosay massacre in Trinidad: British colonial authorities fire on Indian indentured labourers marking a religious festival, killing at least 9.

  November

• November 1
• * The Irish Gaelic Athletic Association is founded in Thurles, Ireland.
• * Leicester City F.C. play their first match, as Leicester Fosse Football Club, in England.
• November 2 - Timișoara, Romania, is the first town in Europe with streets illuminated by electric light.
• November 4 - 1884 United States presidential election: Democratic governor of New York Grover Cleveland defeats Republican James G. Blaine in a very close contest, to win the first of his non-consecutive terms.
• November 15 - The Berlin Conference, which regulates European colonisation and trade in Africa, begins.

  December

• December 1
• * American Old West: Near Frisco, New Mexico, deputy sheriff Elfego Baca holds off a gang of 80 Texan cowboys, who want to kill him for arresting cowboy Charles McCarthy.
• * Porfirio Díaz returns as President of Mexico, an office he will hold until 1911.
• December 4 - Reformers in Korea who admire the Meiji Restoration in Japan stage the Gapsin Coup, with Japan's help. China intervenes to rescue the king and help suppress the rebels.
• December 6
• * The Washington Monument is completed in Washington, D.C., becoming the tallest structure in the world at this date.
• * The Third Reform Act widens the adult male electorate in the United Kingdom to around 60%.
• December 9 - Tom Dudley and Edwin Stephens are convicted of murder in the survival cannibalism case of R v. Dudley and Stephens in the English courts.
• December 10 - Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is first published, in London.
• December 16 - The World Cotton Centennial world's fair opens in New Orleans.
• December 30 - Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 is premiered in Leipzig, bringing the composer his first great success.

  Date unknown

• The first Christian missionary arrives in Korea.
• Police training schools are established in every prefecture in Japan.
• The Yellow Crane Tower last burns in Wuhan.
• Scottish Plymouth Brethren missionary Frederick Stanley Arnot identifies the source of the Zambezi River, near Kalene Hill.
• The Stefan–Boltzmann law is reformulated by Ludwig Boltzmann.
• Mexican General Manuel Mondragón designs an early form of the Mondragón rifle, the world's first automatic rifle.
• Thomas Parker builds a practical production electric car in Wolverhampton using his own specially designed high-capacity rechargeable batteries.
• The water hyacinth is introduced in the United States, and quickly becomes an invasive species.

  Births

January

• January 1
• * Chikuhei Nakajima, Japanese naval officer, engineer, and politician, founder of the Nakajima Aircraft Company
• * Konstantinos Tsaldaris, Greek politician, 2-time prime minister of Greece
• January 2 - Ben-Zion Dinur, Russian-born Israeli educator, historian and politician
• January 12 - Texas Guinan, American vaudeville performer
• January 20 - Charles W. Whittlesey, United States Army officer, commander of the Lost Battalion in World War I
• January 21 - Roger Nash Baldwin, American social activist
• January 23 - Ralph DePalma, Italian-born American race car driver
• January 24 - Thomas Blamey, Australian field marshal
• January 26
• *Gheorghe Avramescu, Romanian general
• *Roy Chapman Andrews, American explorer, adventurer, and naturalist
• January 28 - Auguste Piccard, Swiss physicist, balloonist, and inventor
• January 29 - Rickard Sandler, 20th prime minister of Sweden
• January 30
• * Sōjin Kamiyama, Japanese actor in American silent films,
• * Pedro Pablo Ramírez, 26th president of Argentina, leader of World War II
• January 31 - Theodor Heuss, German politician, 1st president of West Germany