1885

January–March

 * January 3–4 – Sino-French War – Battle of Núi 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 – United States President Chester A. Arthur dedicates the Washington Monument.
 * February 23
 * Sino-French War: France gains an important victory over China in the Battle of Đồng Đăng in the Tonkin region of modern-day Vietnam.
 * 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 is sworn in 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 the Bechuanaland Protectorate.

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 19 – After a three-month legislative battle in the Illinois General Assembly, John A. Logan is re-elected to the United States Senate.
 * 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 Gascoyne-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.
 * August 29 – Gottlieb Daimler is granted a German patent for the Daimler Reitwagen, regarded as the first motorcycle, which he has produced with Wilhelm Maybach.
 * 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 FC defeats Bon Accord FC, 36-0, in the highest score ever in professional football.
 * September 15 – A train wreck of the P. T. Barnum Circus kills giant elephant Jumbo at St. Thomas, Ontario.
 * 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 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 Anglo-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

 * Karl Benz produces the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, regarded as the first automobile (patented and publicly launched the following year).
 * 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 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 United Kingdom to provide charitable assistance.
 * Camp Dudley, the oldest continually running boys' camp in the United States, 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 in modern times is the Houghton County Fire Hall.

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 25 – Roy Geiger, American general (d. 1947)
 * January 26
 * Michael Considine, Australian politician (d. 1959)
 * Harry Ricardo, English mechanical engineer; engine pioneer (d. 1974)
 * 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 – Władysław 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 10 – Rupert Downes, Australian general (d. 1945)
 * 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 W. Nimitz, American 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)
 * St John Philby, Ceylonese-born British Arabist (d. 1960)
 * April 4 – Bee Ho Gray, American Wild West star, silent film actor and vaudeville performer (d. 1951)
 * April 12 – Hermann Hoth, German general (d. 1971)
 * April 13
 * John Cunningham, British admiral (d. 1962)
 * Otto Plath, American father of poet Sylvia Plath and entomologist (d. 1940)
 * Vean Gregg, American baseball player (d. 1964)
 * April 17 – Karen Blixen, Danish author (d. 1962)
 * April 29 – Frank Jack Fletcher, American admiral (d. 1973)
 * May 2
 * Hedda Hopper, American columnist (d. 1966)
 * Lee W. Stanley, American cartoonist (d. 1970)
 * 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 20 – Faisal I of Iraq (d. 1933)
 * May 21
 * Oscar A. C. Lund, Swedish film actor, director, and writer (d. 1963)
 * Princess 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)
 * May 30 – Arthur E. Andersen, American accountant (d. 1947)
 * June 2 – Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt, German neuropathologist (d. 1964)
 * 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 13 – John Palm, Curaçao born composer (d. 1925)
 * June 21 – Harry A. Marmer, Ukrainian-born American mathematician and oceanographer (d. 1953)
 * 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 8 – Paul Leni, German film director; The Cat and the Canary (d. 1929)
 * July 14 – Sisavang Vong, king of Laos (d. 1959)
 * July 19 – Aristides de Sousa Mendes, Portuguese diplomat and humanitarian (d. 1954)
 * July 28 – Monte Attell, American boxer (d. 1960)
 * July 29 – Theda Bara, American silent film actress (d. 1955)
 * August 1 – George de Hevesy, Hungarian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1966)
 * August 7 – Billie Burke, American actress (d. 1970)
 * August 18 – Bede Fanning, Australian public servant (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 novelist (d. 1930)
 * Julian C. Smith, American general (d. 1975)
 * September 15 – James P. Boyle, American politician (d. 1939)
 * September 20 – Enrico Mizzi, 6th Prime Minister of Malta (d. 1950)
 * September 21 – Thomas de Hartmann, Russian composer (d. 1956)
 * 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 9 – Raymond DeWalt, American inventor and businessman (d. 1961)
 * 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 1 – Anton Flettner, German aviation engineer and inventor (d. 1961)
 * 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 28 – John Willard, American playwright and actor (d. 1942)
 * November 30
 * Albert Kesselring, German field marshal (d. 1960)
 * Ma Zhanshan, Chinese general (d. 1950)
 * 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
 * John Lavarack, Australian general, Governor of Queensland (1946-1957) (d. 1957)
 * Joe "King" Oliver, American jazz musician (d. 1938)

January–June

 * January 11 – Mariano Ospina Rodríguez, President of Colombia (b. 1805)
 * January 13 – Schuyler Colfax, 17th 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, British inventor (b. 1850)
 * February 8 – Nikolai Severtzov, Russian explorer and naturalist (b.1827)
 * February 19 – José María Pinedo, Argentinian naval commander (b. 1795)
 * 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, American swimming instructor, dies as result of becoming the first person to jump from the Brooklyn Bridge (b. 1851)
 * May 22 – Victor Hugo, French author (b. 1802)
 * June 11 – Amédée Courbet, French admiral (b. 1827)
 * June 17 – Edwin Freiherr von Manteuffel, German field marshal (b. 1809)
 * June 22 – Muhammad Ahmad, Sudanese 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, Iranian religious leader (b. 1830)
 * August 10 – James W. Marshall, American contractor and builder of Sutter's Mill (b. 1810)
 * August 29 – Moriz Ludassy, Hungarian journalist (b. 1825)
 * September 2 – Giuseppe Bonavia, Maltese architect (b. 1821)
 * September 6 – Narcís Monturiol, 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, African elephant, star attraction in P. T. Barnum's circus (train accident) (b. 1861)
 * Carl Spitzweg, German romanticist painter (b. 1808)
 * October 29 – George B. McClellan, American Civil War general (b. 1826)
 * November 16 – Louis Riel, Canadian-American leader (executed) (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)
 * date unknown - Eugenia Kisimova, Bulgarian feminist, philanthropist and women's rights activist (b. 1831)
 * Karolina Sobańska, Polish noble and agent (b. circa 1794)

In fiction

 * September 2–September 7 – The film Back to the Future Part III takes place during this time.
 * The stage "Bury My Shell at Wounded Knee" in the 1992 video game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time is set in this year.
 * The Nickelodeon TV movie, Lost in the West takes place in this year.