Events of 1885

January–March

Feb. 21: Washington Monument dedicated.

• Chile's Matrimony and Civil Registry laws come into effect.

• 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 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.

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 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 (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.

Undated

The Benz Patent Motorwagen was built in 1885

• The Benz Patent Motorwagen, the first purpose-built automobile, is built.

• The first genuine safety bicycle, the Rover, is built by John K Starley, the nephew of James Starley of Coventry Company.

• A cholera outbreak occurs in Spain.

• The Committee of Fifteen tries to expel all remaining Chinese from the Puget Sound area.

• Nikola Tesla sells a number of his patents to George Westinghouse.

• Millwall F.C. are founded by workers on the Isle of Dogs as Millwall Rovers.

• The first skyscraper (the Home Insurance Building) is built in Chicago, Illinois, USA (10 floors).

• Bicycle Playing Cards are first produced.

• SSAFA Forces Help (British charity) is established.

• 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–June

• 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 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)

• February 1 – Friedrich Kellner, German diarist, (d. 1970)

• February 7 – Sinclair Lewis, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1951)

• February 9 – Alban Berg, Austrian composer (d. 1935)

• February 13 – Bess Truman, First Lady of the United States (d. 1982)

• February 14 – Syed Zafarul Hasan, Muslim philosopher (d. 1949)

• February 15 – Princess Alice of Battenberg (d. 1969)

• 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 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 13 – Vean Gregg, American baseball player (d. 1964)

• April 17 – Karen Blixen, Danish author (d. 1962)

• May 2 – Hedda Hopper, American columnist (d. 1966)

• May 7 – George 'Gabby' Hayes, American actor (d. 1969)

• May 9 – Eduard C. Lindeman, American social worker and author (d. 1953)

• May 14 – Otto Klemperer, German conductor (d. 1973)

• 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 24- Susan Sutherland Isaacs, educational psychologist and psychoanalyst (d.1948)

• May 22 – Toyoda Soemu, Japanese admiral (d. 1957)

• 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–December

• July 4 – Louis B. Mayer, American film producer (d. 1957)

• 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 11 – D. H. Lawrence, English author (d. 1930)

• September 22 – Ben Chifley, Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1951)

• September 22 – Erich Von Stroheim, motion picture actor & director (d. 1957)

• 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 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)

• November 9 (October 28 (O.S.)) – Velimir Khlebnikov, Russian poet (d. 1922)

• November 11 – George Patton, American general (d. 1945)

• November 15 – Frederick Handley-Page, British aviation pioneer & aircraft company founder (d. 1962)

• November 20 – Heinrich Brüning, Chancellor of Germany (d. 1970)

• December 2 – George Minot, American physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1950)

• December 19 – Joe "King" Oliver, American jazz musician (d. 1938)

Deaths

January–June

• January 11 – Mariano Ospina Rodríguez, President of Colombia (b. 1805)

• 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 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 15 – Jumbo, the great elephant & star attraction in PT Barnum's circus (train accident) (b. 1861)

• November 16 – Louis Riel, Canadian leader (hanged for treason) (b. 1844)

• 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)