1885

Years: 1882 1883 1884 - 1885 - 1886 1887 1888

Decades: 1850s 1860s 1870s - 1880s - 1890s 1900s 1910s

Events of 1885

January–March

• January 4 – The first successful appendectomy is performed by Dr. William W. Grant on Mary Gartside.
• January 20 – L.A. Thompson patents the roller coaster.
• January 24 – Edge Hill College opens in Liverpool
• January 26 – Troops loyal to the Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad conquer Khartoum.
• 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 21 – United States President Chester A. Arthur dedicates the Washington Monument.
• February 23 – A British executioner fails to hang John 'Babbacombe' Lee. Lee, sentenced for the murder of Emma Keyse, has his sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
• February 26 – The final act of the Berlin Conference regulates European colonization and trade in Africa.
• February 28 – February concludes without having a full moon.
• March–May – The North-West Rebellion is suppressed in Canada.
• 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 14 – W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's The Mikado opens at the Savoy Theatre.
• March 26 – The Times reports that "A lady well-known in literary and scientific circles" has been cremated by the Cremation Society in Woking, Surrey. Jeannette C. Pickersgill is the first person to be officially cremated in the United Kingdom.
• 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.
• 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 – The battle of Frog Lake, Alberta between the Cree and mounties.
• April 3 – Gottlieb Daimler is granted a German patent for his 1-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..
• 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.
  • 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–May 12 – Battle of Batoche: Canadian government forces inflict a decisive defeat on Métis rebels.
• June 17 – The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.
• June 24 – Randolph Churchill becomes Secretary of State for India.

July–September

• July 6 – Louis Pasteur successfully tests his vaccine against rabies. The patient is Joseph Meister, a boy who was bitten by a rabid dog.
• 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 (soccer) is legalized in Britain.
• 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 13 – The Georgia Institute of Technology is established in Atlanta, Georgia as the Georgia School of Technology.
• 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.

Births

• February 5 - Samuel Dickstein, New York congressman and paid NKVD agent. (d. 1954)
• February 7 - Sinclair Lewis, American writer, Nobel Prize Laureate (d. 1951)
• February 12 - Julius Streicher, National Socialist and publisher Der Stürmer (d. 1946)
• March 31 - Boris Brasol, translator of the Protocols (d. 1963)
• April 28 - Leon Milton Birkhead, Unitarian pastor (d. 1954)
• July 15 - Alexander Rud Mills, Australian Odinist (d.1964)
• September 12 - Heinrich Hoffmann, German photographer (d. 1957)
• September 27 - Joel L. Baskin, attorney and Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan (d. 1948)
• October 30 - Ezra Pound, American poet (d. 1972)

Deaths

• 20 April - Gustav Nachtigal (de), German doctor and Africa explorer
• 17 June - Edwin Freiherr von Manteuffel, German Generalfeldmarschall
• 23 July - Ulysses Simpson Grant, US-American general and president