1885

This article is about the year 1885.

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	18th century – 19th century – 20th century
Decades:	1850s  1860s  1870s  – 1880s –  1890s  1900s  1910s
Years:	1882 1883 1884 – 1885 – 1886 1887 1888

1885 in topic:

Humanities

Archaeology – Architecture – Art – Literature – Music

By country

Australia – Canada – France – Germany – Mexico – Philippines – South Africa – US – UK

Other topics

Rail Transport – Science – Sports

Lists of leaders

Colonial Governors – State leaders

Birth and death categories

Births – Deaths

Establishments and disestablishments categories

Establishments – Disestablishments

Works category

Works

1885 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	1885 MDCCCLXXXV
Ab urbe condita	2638
Armenian calendar	1334 ԹՎ ՌՅԼԴ
Assyrian calendar	6635
Bahá'í calendar	41–42
Bengali calendar	1292
Berber calendar	2835
British Regnal year	48 Vict. 1 – 49 Vict. 1
Buddhist calendar	2429
Burmese calendar	1247
Byzantine calendar	7393–7394
Chinese calendar	甲申年 (Wood Monkey) 4581 or 4521     — to — 乙酉年 (Wood Rooster) 4582 or 4522
Coptic calendar	1601–1602
Ethiopian calendar	1877–1878
Hebrew calendar	5645–5646
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1941–1942
- Shaka Samvat	1807–1808
- Kali Yuga	4986–4987
Holocene calendar	11885
Igbo calendar	885–886
Iranian calendar	1263–1264
Islamic calendar	1302–1303
Japanese calendar	Meiji 18 (明治１８年)
Juche calendar	N/A
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 12 days
Korean calendar	4218
Minguo calendar	27 before ROC 民前27年
Thai solar calendar	2428

Year 1885 (MDCCCLXXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar.

Events

January–March

Feb. 21: Washington Monument dedicated.

• January 3–4 – Sino-French War – Battle of Nui Bop: French troops under General Oscar de Négrier defeat a numerically superior Qing Chinese force in northern Vietnam.
• January 4 – The first successful appendectomy is performed by Dr. William W. Grant on Mary Gartside.
• January 17 – Mahdist War in Sudan: British victory at the Battle of Abu Klea.
• January 20 – LaMarcus Adna Thompson patents a roller coaster.
• January 24 – Irish terrorists damage Westminster Hall and the Tower of London with dynamite.
• January 26 – Mahdist War in Sudan: Troops loyal to the Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad conquer Khartoum. The British commander Charles George Gordon is killed.
• February 5 – King Léopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo Free State as a personal possession.
• February 7 – The play La vida alegre y muerte triste by dramatist José Echegaray opens.
• February 9 – The first Japanese arrive in Hawaii.
• February 16 – Charles Dow publishes the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The index stood at a level of 62.76, and represented the dollar average of 14 stocks: 12 railroads and two leading American industries.
• February 21 – President of the United States Chester A. Arthur dedicates the Washington Monument.
• February 23 – 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 3 – A subsidiary of the American Bell Telephone Company, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T), is incorporated in New York.
• March 4 – Grover Cleveland succeeds Chester A. Arthur as President of the United States.
• 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
  • The Prussian government, motivated by Otto von Bismarck, expels all ethnic Poles and Jews without German citizenship from Prussia in the Prussian deportations.
  • 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: Mrs Jeannette C. 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 a protectorate over Bechuanaland.^{[citation needed]}

April–June

• 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 are created by the merger of (Luton) Wanderers F.C. and Luton Excelsior F.C. in England.
• April 14 – Final engagement of Sino–French War, with a French victory at Kép. China withdraws its forces from Tonkin.
• April 30 – A bill is signed in the New York State legislature forming the Niagara Falls State Park.
• 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.
  • The Congo Free State is established by King Léopold II of Belgium.
• May 9–12 – Battle of Batoche: Canadian government forces inflict a decisive defeat on Métis rebels, bringing an end to their part in the North-West Rebellion.
• May 20 – The first public train departs Swanage railway station on the newly built Swanage Railway in England.
• 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 Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• June 24 – Randolph Churchill becomes Secretary of State for India.

July–September

• 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 female African-American 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 20 – Professional football is legalized in Britain.
• July 23 – Ulysses S. Grant, American Civil War general and the 18th President of the United States, dies at age 63.
• July 28 – Louis Riel's trial for treason begins in Regina.
• 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.
• 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 36-0 Bon Accord, the highest score ever in professional soccer.
• September 15 – A train wreck of the P.T. Barnum Circus kills giant elephant Jumbo.
• September 18 – The union of Eastern Rumelia with Bulgaria is proclaimed at Plovdiv.
• September 30 – A British force abolishes the Boer republic of Stellaland and adds it to British Bechuanaland.

October–December

• October 3 – Millwall F.C. is founded by workers on the Isle of Dogs in London as Millwall Rovers.
• October 13 – The Georgia Institute of Technology is established in Atlanta, Georgia as the Georgia School of Technology.
• October 25 – Symphony No. 4 (Brahms) is premiered in Meiningen, Germany; with Johannes Brahms himself conducting it.
• November – The Third Burmese War begins.
• November 7 – Canadian Pacific Railway: In Craigellachie, British Columbia, construction ends on a railway extending across Canada. Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald considers the project to be vital to Canada due to the exponentially greater potential for military mobility.
• November 14–November 28 – Serbo-Bulgarian War: Serbia declares war against Bulgaria but is defeated in the Battle of Slivnitsa on November 17–November 19.
• November 16 – Louis Riel, Canadian rebel leader of the Métis, is executed for high treason.
• December 1 – The U.S. Patent Office acknowledges this date as the day Dr Pepper is served for the very first time; the exact date of Dr Pepper's invention is unknown.
• December 28 – 72 Indian lawyers, academics and journalists gather in Bombay to form the Congress Party.

Date unknown

The Benz Patent Motorwagen, built in 1885

• Karl Benz produces the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, regarded as the first automobile (patented and publicly launched the following year).
• Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach produce the Daimler Reitwagen, regarded as the first motorcycle.
• John Kemp Starley demonstrates the Rover safety bicycle, regarded as the first practical modern bicycle.
• Chile's Matrimony and Civil Registry laws come into effect.
• A cholera outbreak occurs in Spain.
• The Committee of Fifteen tries to expel all remaining Chinese from the Puget Sound area.
• Frindsbury Cricket Club, regarded as the home of cricket in the English county of Kent, is founded.
• 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.
• Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association is established in the UK to provide charitable assistance.
• Camp Dudley, the oldest continually running boys' camp in America, 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 (originally Michigan Mining School) opens its doors for the first time in what is now the Houghton County Fire Hall.

Births

January–March

• January 6 – Florence Turner, American actress (d. 1946)
• January 8 – John Curtin, Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1945)
• January 11
  • Jack Hoxie, American actor, rodeo performer (d. 1965)
  • Alice Paul, American women's rights activist (d. 1977)
• January 12 – Harry Benjamin, American endocrinologist and sexologist (d. 1986)
• January 16 – Zhou Zuoren, Chinese writer (d. 1967)
• January 21 – Umberto Nobile, Italian politician and airship designer (d. 1978)
• January 26 – Michael Considine, Australian politician (d. 1959)
• January 27
  • Jerome Kern, American composer (d. 1945)
  • Eduard Künneke, German composer (d. 1953)
  • Harry Ruby, American musician, composer, and writer (d. 1974)
• January 28 – Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz, former President of Poland (d. 1947)
• February 1 – Friedrich Kellner, German diarist, (d. 1970)
• February 7
  • Sinclair Lewis, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1951)
  • Hugo Sperrle, German field marshal (d. 1953)
• February 9 – Alban Berg, Austrian composer (d. 1935)
• February 13
  • Bess Truman, First Lady of the United States (d. 1982)
  • George Fitzmaurice, French-American Motion Picture director (d. 1940)
• February 14
  • Syed Zafarul Hasan, Muslim philosopher (d. 1949)
  • Zengo Yoshida, Japanese admiral (d. 1966)
• February 15 – Princess Alice of Battenberg (d. 1969)
• February 18 – Richard S. Edwards, American admiral (d. 1956)
• February 21 – Sacha Guitry, Russian-born dramatist, writer, director, and actor (d. 1957)
• February 24
  • Chester Nimitz, U.S. admiral (d. 1966)
  • Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Polish writer and painter (d. 1939)
• March 6 – Ring Lardner, American writer (d. 1933)
• March 7 – John Tovey, British admiral of the fleet (d. 1971)
• March 11 – Sir Malcolm Campbell, English land and water racer (d. 1948)
• March 14 – Raoul Lufbery, World War I American pilot (d. 1918)
• March 31 – Pascin, Bulgarian painter (d. 1930)

April–June

• April 1 – Wallace Beery, American actor (d. 1949)
• April 3 – Allan Dwan, Canadian-born film director (d. 1981)
• April 4 – Bee Ho Gray, Wild West star, silent film actor and vaudeville performer (d. 1951)
• April 12 – Hermann Hoth, German general (d. 1971)
• April 13
  • Otto Plath, father of American Poet, Sylvia Plath, and entomologist (d. 1940)
  • Vean Gregg, American baseball player (d. 1964)
• April 17 – Karen Blixen, Danish author (d. 1962)
• May 2 – Hedda Hopper, American columnist (d. 1966)
• May 5 – Agustín Pío Barrios, Paraguayan guitarist and composer (d. 1944)
• May 7 – George 'Gabby' Hayes, American actor (d. 1969)
• May 9 – Eduard C. Lindeman, American social worker and author (d. 1953)
• May 12 – Paltiel Daykan, Russian-born Israeli jurist (d. 1969)
• May 14 – Otto Klemperer, German conductor (d. 1973)
• May 15 – Robert James Hudson, Governor of Southern Rhodesia (d. 1963)
• May 21
  • Oscar A.C. Lund, Swedish film actor, director, and writer (d. 1963)
  • Sophie of Schönburg-Waldenburg, consort of William of Wied, Prince of Albania (d. 1936)
• May 22 – Toyoda Soemu, Japanese admiral (d. 1957)
• May 24 – Susan Sutherland Isaacs, educational psychologist and psychoanalyst (d.1948)
• May 27 – Richmond K. Turner, American admiral (d. 1961)
• June 5 – Georges Mandel, French politician and World War II hero (d. 1944)
• June 9 – John Edensor Littlewood, British mathematician (d. 1977)
• June 14 – E. L. Grant Watson, writer, anthropologist, and biologist (d. 1970)
• June 19 – John Palm, Curaçao born composer (d. 1925)
• June 22 – Milan Vidmar, Slovenian electrical engineer and chess player (d. 1962)

July–September

• July 4 – Louis B. Mayer, American film producer (d. 1957)
• July 6 – Ernst Busch, German field marshal (d. 1945)
• July 14 – King Sisavang Vong of Laos (d. 1959)
• July 28 – Monte Attell, American boxer (d. 1960)
• August 1 – George de Hevesy, Hungarian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1966)
• August 7 – Billie Burke, American actress (d. 1970)
• September 7 – Eleonore Baur, German Nazi and only woman to participate in Munich Beer Hall Putsch (d. 1981)
• September 11 – D. H. Lawrence, English author (d. 1930)
• September 20 – Enrico Mizzi, 6th Prime Minister of Malta (d. 1950)
• September 22
  • Ben Chifley, Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1951)
  • Erich Von Stroheim, Austrian-born motion picture actor & director (d. 1957)
  • George Gaul, American actor (d. 1939)
• September 25 – Mineichi Koga, Japanese admiral (d. 1944)

October–December

• October 3 – Sophie Treadwell, American playwright and journalist (d. 1970)
• October 7 – Niels Bohr, Danish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1962)
• October 11 – François Mauriac, French writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1970)
• October 24 – Rachel Katznelson-Shazar, Zionist political figure and wife of third President of Israel (d. 1975)
• October 30 – Ezra Pound, American poet (d. 1972)
• November 2 – Harlow Shapley, American astronomer (d. 1972)
• November 5 – Will Durant, American philosopher and writer (d. 1981)
• November 8
  • Eva Morris, last surviving person documented as born in 1885 (d. 2000)
  • Tomoyuki Yamashita, Japanese general (d. 1946)
• November 9 (October 28 (O.S.)) – Velimir Khlebnikov, Russian poet (d. 1922)
• November 11
  • George Patton, American general (d. 1945)
  • Edgar J. Kaufmann, American merchant and patron of Fallingwater (d. 1955)
• November 15 – Frederick Handley-Page, British aviation pioneer & aircraft company founder (d. 1962)
• November 20 – Heinrich Brüning, Chancellor of Germany 1930-1932 (d. 1970)
• November 30 – Albert Kesselring, German field marshal (d. 1960)
• December 2 – George Minot, American physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1950)
• December 6 – Ernest Palmer, American cinematographer (d. 1978)
• December 13 – Mario Talavera, Mexican songwriter (d. 1960)
• December 19 – Joe "King" Oliver, American jazz musician (d. 1938)

Date unknown

• Lee W. Stanley, American cartoonist (d. 1970)

Deaths

January–June

• January 11 – Mariano Ospina Rodríguez, President of Colombia (b. 1805)
• January 13 – Schuyler Colfax, Vice President of the United States (b. 1823)
• January 26 – Charles "Chinese" Gordon, British general (killed in battle) (b. 1833)
• February 1 – Sidney Gilchrist Thomas, inventor (b. 1850)
• February 8 – Nikolai Severtzov, Russian explorer and naturalist (b.1827)
• March 12 – Próspero Fernández Oreamuno, President of Costa Rica (b. 1834)
• April 2 – Justo Rufino Barrios, Central American leader (b. 1835)
• April 25 – Queen Emma of Hawaii (b. 1836)
• May 2 – Terézia Zakoucs Hungarian Slovene author (b. 1817)
• May 4 – Irvin McDowell, American general (b. 1818)
• May 17 – Jonathan Young, United States Navy commodore (b. 1826)
• May 19 – Robert Emmet Odlum swimming instructor that becomes the first person to jump from the Brooklyn Bridge and subsequently dies.
• May 22 – Victor Hugo, French author (b. 1802)
• June 17 – Edwin Freiherr von Manteuffel, German field marshal (b. 1809)
• June 22 – Muhammad Ahmad, Mahdi (b. 1844)

July–December

• July 23 – Ulysses S. Grant, American Civil War general and the 18th President of the United States (b. 1822)
• August – Aga Khan II, religious leader (b. 1830)
• August 10 – James Wilson Marshall, American contractor and builder of Sutter's Mill (b. 1810)
• August 29 – Moriz Ludassy, Hungarian journalist (b. 1825)
• September 6 – Narcís Monturiol i Estarriol, Catalan intellectual, artist and engineer, inventor of the first combustion engine-driven submarine, which was propelled by an early form of air-independent propulsion (b. 1819).
• September 15 – Jumbo, the great elephant & star attraction in PT Barnum's circus (train accident) (b. 1861)
• October 29 – George B. McClellan, American Civil War general (b. 1826)
• November 16 – Louis Riel, Canadian leader (b. 1844)
• November 24 – Nicolás Avellaneda, Argentine president (b. 1837)
• November 25
  • King Alfonso XII of Spain (b. 1857)
  • Thomas Hendricks, 21st Vice President of the United States (b. 1819)
• November 26 – Thomas Andrews, Irish chemist (b. 1813)
• December 8 – William Henry Vanderbilt, American entrepreneur (b. 1821)
• December 15 – Ferdinand II of Portugal, consort of Queen Maria II (b. 1816)

In fiction

• September 2–September 7 – The film Back to the Future Part III takes place during this time.