1886 (MDCCCLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day Julian calendar).

[edit] Events of 1886

[edit] January–March

• January 1 – Burma is presented to Queen Victoria as a birthday gift, after the country is annexed into British India in November 1885.
• 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 (built in 1885).
• February 14 – The first train load of oranges leaves Los Angeles via the transcontinental railroad.
• March – Anti-Chinese sentiments result in riots in Seattle, USA.
• March 3 – The Treaty of Bucharest ends the Serbo-Bulgarian War in the Balkans.
• March 16 – A law establishing the Kiel Canal is adopted.
• March 17 – Carrollton Massacre: 20 African Americans are killed in Mississippi.
• March 29 – Wilhelm Steinitz becomes first recognized World Chess Champion.

[edit] April–June

• April 4 – William Ewart Gladstone introduces the First Irish Home Rule Bill in the British Parliament; it is defeated on June 8.
• April 25 – Easter occurs on the latest possible date (the next time in 1943).
• May 1 – A general strike begins in the United States, which escalates into the Haymarket Riot and eventually wins the eight-hour workday in the U.S.
• May 4 – Emil Berliner starts work that leads to the invention of the gramophone.
• May 8 – Pharmacist Dr. John Stith Pemberton invents a carbonated beverage that would be named Coca-Cola.
• May 15 – Portugal and France agree to regulate the borders of their colonies in Guinea.
• May 17 – Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that corporations have the same rights as living persons.
• May 29 – Pharmacist John Pemberton begins to advertise Coca-Cola (ad in the Atlanta Journal).
• June 2 – U.S. President Grover Cleveland marries Frances Folsom in the White House, becoming the only president to wed in the executive mansion. She is 27 years his junior.

• June 9 – The centennial of the Stoughton Musical Society is celebrated.
• 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 captured.
• June 13 – A fire devastates much of Vancouver, British Columbia.
• June 30 – The Royal Holloway, University of London is opened by Queen Victoria in Surrey, United Kingdom.

[edit] July–September

• July 3 – Karl Benz officially unveils the Benz Patent Motorwagen .
• July 9 – Charles Hall files a patent for his process of turning aluminium oxide into molten aluminium.
• July 23 – Steve Brodie fakes a jump from the Brooklyn Bridge.
• July 25 – Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (Conservative Party (UK)) becomes Great Britain's 30th Prime Minister.
• August 20 – A massive hurricane demolishes the town of Indianola, Texas.
• August 31 – An earthquake of between 7.3 and 7.6 on the Richter Scale hits Charlestown, South Carolina, leaving 40,000 homeless.
• September 4 – 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 – Bern Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.
• September 15 – The first day of school begins in the newly founded Alhambra School District.
• September 21 – William Stanley, Jr. patents the first practical alternating current transformer device, the induction coil.

[edit] October–December

• October 7 – Spain abolishes slavery in Cuba.
• October 28 – In New York Harbor, U.S. President Grover Cleveland dedicates the Statue of Liberty.
• November – extremely harsh Winter of 1886-1887 begins, killing tens of thousands of cattle on the Great Plains
• November 3 – In Pakistan one of the biggest schools in the country, Aitchison College, Lahore, was founded by Sir Charles Umpherston Aitchison
• November 11 – Heinrich Hertz verifies at the University of Karlsruhe the existence of the electromagnetic waves.
• November 30 – The Folies Bergère stages its first revue.
• December 25 – Arsenal Football Club is founded.

[edit] Undated

• The Maidenhead Citadel Band of The Salvation Army is founded by William Thomas.
• Scotch whisky distiller William Grant & Sons is founded.
• The village of Skorenovac is founded, mostly by Székely Hungarians.
• An inexpensive method for refining aluminum, the Hall-Héroult process, is discovered.
• Father Augustine Tolton, the first Roman Catholic priest from the United States to proclaim himself African American, is ordained in Rome.
• Horse-drawn streetcars of Austria-Hungary, France, Germany and Great Britain are carrying c. 900 million riders per year.
• The establishment of the Yorkshire Tea merchants.

[edit] Births

[edit] January–June

• January 2 – Florence Lawrence, Canadian-born actress (d. 1938)
• January 5 – Markus Reiner, Israeli scientist (d. 1976)
• January 7 – Amedeo Maiuri, Neapolitan archaeologist (d. 1963)
• January 11 – Chester Conklin, American actor (d. 1971)
• January 14 – Hugh Lofting, English-born author (d. 1947)
• January 18 – Clara Nordström, German writer and translator (d. 1962)
• January 25 – Wilhelm Furtwängler, German conductor (d. 1954)
• January 28 – Hidetsugu Yagi, Japanese electrical engineer (d. 1976)
• February 2 – Frank Lloyd, English-born film director, scriptwriter and producer (d. 1960)
• February 4 – Edward Sheldon, American playwright, (d. 1946)
• February 7 – Yehezkel Abramsky, eminent Russian-born rabbi, head of the London Beth Din for 17 years (d. 1976)
• February 8 – Charles Ruggles, American actor (d. 1970)
• February 27 – Hugo Black, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (d. 1971)
• March 1 – Oskar Kokoschka, Austrian artist and poet (d. 1980)
• March 2 – Willis O'Brien, American stop motion animator (d. 1962)
• March 3 – Tore Ørjasæter, Norwegian poet (d. 1968)
• March 7 – Jacques Majorelle, French painter (d. 1962)
• March 8 – Edward Calvin Kendall, American chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1972)
• March 11 – Edward Rydz-Śmigły, Polish politician, Marshal of Poland (d. 1941)
• March 15 – Sergei Kirov, Soviet revolutionary (d. 1934)
• March 18
  • Edward Everett Horton, American actor (d. 1970)
  • Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière, German U-boat ace (d. 1941)
• March 20 – Grace Brown, American murder victim whose story became a famous court case, (d. 1906)
• March 24 – Edward Weston, American photographer (d. 1958)
• March 25 – Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople (d. 1972)
• March 27 – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, German architect (d. 1969)
• April 8 – Margaret Ayer Barnes, American playwright, novelist, and short-story writer (d. 1967)
• April 14 – Ernst Robert Curtius, Alsatian philologist (d. 1956)
• April 15 – Tadeusz Kutrzeba, Polish general (d. 1947)
• April 16 – Ernst Thälmann, German Communist Leader (d. 1944)
• April 25 – Marie Brémont, the last surviving person documented as born in 1886 (d. 2001)
• April 26 – Ma Rainey, American singer (d. 1939)
• May 2 – Gottfried Benn, German poet (d. 1956)
• May 3 – Marcel Dupré, French composer (d. 1971)
• May 10
  • Karl Barth, Swiss Protestant theologian (d. 1968)
  • Olaf Stapledon, British author and philosopher (d. 1950)
• May 17 – King Alfonso XIII of Spain (d. 1941)
• May 18 – Ture Nerman, Swedish communist leader (d. 1969)
• May 20 – John Jacob Astor, 1st Baron Astor of Hever, British businessman (d. 1971)
• May 26 – Al Jolson, American entertainer (d. 1950)
• June 7 – Henri Coandă, Romanian aerodynamics pioneer (d. 1972)
• June 9 – Kosaku Yamada, Japanese composer and conductor (d. 1965)
• June 18 – George Mallory, English climber (d. 1924)
• June 24 – George Shiels, Northern Irish dramatist (d. 1949)
• June 25 – Henry "Hap" Arnold, American Five-Star General, U.S. Army, aviation pioneer (d. 1950)
• June 29 – Robert Schuman, German-French politician, a founding father of the European Union (d. 1963)

[edit] July–December

• July 3 – Raymond A. Spruance, American admiral and ambassador (d. 1969)
• July 5 – Willem Drees, Dutch Politician, Prime Minister and Centenarian (d. 1988)
• July 12 – Jean Hersholt, Danish-born actor (d. 1956)
• July 19 – Michael Fekete, Hungarian-born Israeli mathematician (d. 1957)
• July 23 – Walter H. Schottky, German physicist (d. 1976)
• July 24 – Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Japanese writer (d. 1965)
• July 25 – Bror von Blixen-Finecke, Danish big-game hunter (d. 1946)
• August 2 – John A.D. McCurdy, aviation pioneer & Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia (d. 1961)
• August 27
  • Rebecca Helferich Clarke, English composer and violist (d. 1979)
  • Eric Coates, English composer (d. 1957)
• September 1 – Othmar Schoeck, Swiss composer (d. 1957)
• September 4 – Albert Orsborn, the 6th General of The Salvation Army (d. 1967)
• September 5 – Nell Brinkley, American illustrator and comic artist (d. 1944)
• September 8 – Siegfried Sassoon, British poet (d. 1967)
• September 13 – Robert Robinson, British chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1975)
• September 14 – Jan Masaryk, Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia (d. 1948)
• September 16 – Jean Arp, Alsatian sculptor, painter, and poet (d. 1966)
• September 20 – Charles Williams, British author (d. 1945)
• September 24
  • Roberto María Ortiz, President of Argentina (d. 1942)
  • Edward Bach, English metaphysician and homeopath (d. 1936)
• September 26 – Archibald Vivian Hill, English physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1977)
• September 28 – Alice Hollister, American silent film actress (d. 1973)
• October 3 – Henri Alban-Fournier, French author of Le Grand Meaulnes
• October 6 – Edwin Fischer, Swiss pianist and conductor (d. 1960)
• October 16 – David Ben-Gurion, first Prime Minister of Israel (d. 1973)
• October 17 – Andrej Bicenko, Russian fresco painter and muralist (d. 1985)
• October 26 – Charles Vincent Emerson Starrett, newspaper columnist for The Chicago Tribune and expert on Sherlock Holmes, born in Toronto, Ontario (d. 1974
• October 30 – Zoë Akins, American playwright, poet, and author (d. 1958)
• November 1 – Hermann Broch, Austrian author (d. 1951)
• November 6 – André Marty, French Communist Party leader (d. 1956)
• November 9 – Ed Wynn, American actor (d. 1966)
• November 12 – Alfonso de Orleans y Borbón, Spanish prince and military aviator (d. 1975)
• November 15 – René Guénon, French-Egyptian author (d. 1951)
• November 20 – Karl von Frisch, Austrian zoologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1982)
• November 26 – Margaret Caroline Anderson, American publisher, editor (d. 1973)
• December 3 – Manne Siegbahn, Swedish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1978)
• December 5 – Rose Wilder Lane, American author (d. 1968)
• December 8 – Diego Rivera, Mexican painter (d. 1957)
• December 12 – Owen Moore, Irish actor (d. 1939)
• December 18 – Ty Cobb, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1961)
• December 25 – Kid Ory, American jazz musician (d. 1973)
• December 30 – Austin Osman Spare, English artist and magician

[edit] Deaths

[edit] January–June

• January 17 – Amilcare Ponchielli, Italian composer (born 1834)
• January 18 – Baldassare Verazzi, Italian painter (born 1819)
• January 25 – Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna, Chilean historian (born 1831)
• January 26 – David Rice Atchison, American politician (born 1807)
• February 18 – Dave Rudabaugh, American outlaw and gunfighter (born 1854)
• February 24 – Hugh Stowell Brown, Manx preacher (born 1823)
• March 17 – Pierre-Jules Hetzel, French editor and publisher (born 1814)
• April 27 – Henry Hobson Richardson, prominent American architect (born 1838)
• May 9 – Facundo Bacardí, Cuban rum manufacturer (born 1814)
• May 15 – Emily Dickinson, American poet (born 1830)
• May 17 – John Deere, American inventor (born 1804)
• June 13 – King Ludwig II of Bavaria (born 1845)

[edit] July–December

• July 1 – Otto Wilhelm Hermann von Abich, German geologist (born 1806)
• July 4 – Poundmaker, Aboriginal Canadian leader, born ca. (b. ca. 1842)
• July 31 – Franz Liszt, Hungarian pianist and composer (born 1811)
• August 9 – Samuel Ferguson, Northern Irish poet and artist (born 1810)
• August 11 – Lydia Koidula, Estonian poet (born 1843)
• August 16 – Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Indian spiritual figure (born 1836)
• August 30 – Ferris Jacobs, Jr., American politician (born 1836)
• September 3 – William W. Snow, American politician (born 1812)
• September 14 – Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard, American land speculator (born 1802)
• October 8 – Austin F. Pike, American politician from New Hampshire (born 1819)
• November 18 – Chester A. Arthur, 21st President of the United States (born 1829)
• November 20 – William Bliss Baker, American painter (born 1859)
• December 8 – William Fraser Tolmie, Scottish-Canadian scientist and politician (born 1812)
• date unknown – Andrew Nicholl, Northern Irish painter (born 1804)