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 17 – Mahdist War in Sudan – Battle of Abu Klea: British troops defeat Mahdist forces.
 * January 20 – American inventor LaMarcus Adna Thompson patents a roller coaster.
 * January 24 – Irish rebels damage Westminster Hall and the Tower of London with dynamite.
 * January 26 – Mahdist War in Sudan: Troops loyal to Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad conquer Khartoum; British commander Charles George Gordon is killed.
 * February 5 – King Leopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo Free State, as a personal possession.
 * February 9 – The first Japanese arrive in Hawaii.
 * February 16 – Charles Dow publishes the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The index stands at a level of 62.76, and represents the dollar average of 14 stocks: 12 railroads and two leading American industries.
 * February 20 – The Richmond Football Club is officially formed at the Royal Hotel in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond, Victoria.
 * February 21 – United States President Chester A. Arthur dedicates the Washington Monument.
 * February 23
 * Sino-French War – Battle of Đồng Đăng: France gains an important victory over China, 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 the 22nd 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
 * Prussian deportations: The Prussian government, motivated by Otto von Bismarck, expels all ethnic Poles and Jews without German citizenship from Prussia.
 * The 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: widowed painter Jeanette 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 is created by the merger of (Luton) Wanderers F.C. and Luton Excelsior F.C. in England.
 * April 14 – Sino-French War: A French victory at Kép causes China to withdraw its forces from Tonkin, in the final engagement of the conflict.
 * April 22 – Symphony No. 7 (Dvořák) was premiered at St James's Hall in London.
 * 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.
 * May 9–12 – North-West Rebellion – Battle of Batoche: Canadian government forces inflict a decisive defeat on Métis rebels, bringing an end to their part in the 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.

July–September

 * July – Japan Brewery, predecessor of Kirin Holdings is founded in Yokohama, Japan.
 * 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 African-American woman 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 16 – BHP (Broken Hill Proprietary), a worldwide mining and natural gas producer is founded in New South Wales, Australia.
 * July 20 – The Football Association recognises professional players in England.
 * 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 12 – The city of Fresno, California, is incorporated.
 * 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 John A. Macdonald considers the project to be vital to Canada, due to the exponentially greater potential for military mobility.
 * November 14–28 – Serbo-Bulgarian War: Serbia declares war against Bulgaria, but is defeated in the Battle of Slivnitsa on November 17–19.
 * 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 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.
 * 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.
 * The 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 the future Houghton County Fire Hall.
 * Chuo Law College, as predecessor of Chuo University, founded in Kanda, Tokyo, Japan.
 * Before November 1 – More than 24,000 Christians killed, 225 churches burnt, seventeen orphanages and ten convents destroyed in Cochinchina, now known as Vietnam.

January

 * January 6 – Florence Turner, American actress (d. 1946)
 * January 8 – John Curtin, 14th 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, sexologist (d. 1986)
 * Claude Fuess, American author, historian and headmaster (d. 1963)
 * January 14 – Constantin Sănătescu, 44th prime minister of Romania (d. 1947)
 * January 16 – Zhou Zuoren, Chinese writer (d. 1967)
 * January 17 – Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, German general and war criminal (d. 1968)
 * January 21 – Umberto Nobile, Italian aviator and explorer (d. 1978)
 * January 25 – Roy Geiger, American general (d. 1947)
 * January 26 – Harry Ricardo, English mechanical engineer, engine pioneer (d. 1974)
 * January 27
 * Jerome Kern, American composer (d. 1945)
 * Harry Ruby, American musician, composer, and writer (d. 1974)
 * January 28 – Władysław Raczkiewicz, President of Poland (d. 1947)
 * January 30 – John Henry Towers, U. S.admiral and naval aviation pioneer (d. 1955)

February

 * 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
 * George Fitzmaurice, French-American motion picture director (d. 1940)
 * Bess Truman, First Lady of the United States (d. 1982)
 * February 14 – Zengo Yoshida, Japanese admiral (d. 1966)
 * February 21 – Sacha Guitry, Russian-born French dramatist, writer, director, and actor (d. 1957)
 * February 22 – Pat Sullivan, Australian-born American director, animated film producer (d. 1933)
 * February 24
 * Chester W. Nimitz, American admiral (d. 1966)
 * Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Polish writer, painter (d. 1939)
 * February 25 – Princess Alice of Battenberg (d. 1969)
 * February 26 – Aleksandras Stulginskis, President of Lithuania (d. 1969)

March

 * 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, water racer (d. 1948)
 * March 14 – Raoul Lufbery, French-born American World War I pilot (d. 1918)
 * March 23 – Mollie McNutt, Australian poet (d. 1919)
 * March 27 – Julio Lozano Díaz, President of Honduras (d. 1957)
 * March 31 – Jules Pascin, Bulgarian painter (d. 1930)

April

 * April 1
 * Wallace Beery, American actor (d. 1949)
 * Clementine Churchill, wife of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (d. 1977)
 * April 3
 * Allan Dwan, Canadian-born American film director (d. 1981)
 * Bud Fisher, American cartoonist (Mutt and Jeff) (d. 1954)
 * St John Philby, Ceylonese-born British orientalist (d. 1960)
 * April 12 – Hermann Hoth, German general (d. 1971)
 * April 13
 * John Cunningham, British admiral (d. 1962)
 * Otto Plath, American father of poet Sylvia Plath, entomologist (d. 1940)
 * April 15 – Tadeusz Kutrzeba, Polish general (d. 1947)
 * April 16 – Charles Debbas, 1st president, 5th prime minister of Lebanon (d. 1935)
 * April 17 – Karen Blixen, Danish author (d. 1962)
 * April 29 – Frank Jack Fletcher, American admiral (d. 1973)

May

 * May 2 – Hedda Hopper, American columnist (d. 1966)
 * May 5 – Agustín Barrios, Paraguayan guitarist, composer (d. 1944)
 * May 7 – George "Gabby" Hayes, American actor (d. 1969)
 * May 8 – Thomas B. Costain, Canadian author and journalist (d. 1965)
 * May 9 – Eduard C. Lindeman, American social worker, author (d. 1953)
 * May 14 – Otto Klemperer, German conductor (d. 1973)
 * May 15
 * Robert James Hudson, Governor of Southern Rhodesia (d. 1963)
 * Naokuni Nomura, Japanese admiral and Minister of the Navy (d. 1973)
 * May 20 – Faisal I of Iraq (d. 1933)
 * May 21 – Sophie, Princess of Albania, consort of William of Wied, Prince of Albania (d. 1936)
 * May 22 – Toyoda Soemu, Japanese admiral (d. 1957)
 * May 24 – Susan Sutherland Isaacs, English educational psychologist, psychoanalyst (d. 1948)
 * May 27 – Richmond K. Turner, American admiral (d. 1961)
 * May 30 – Arthur E. Andersen, American accountant (d. 1947)

June

 * June 2 – Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt, German neuropathologist (d. 1964)
 * June 4 – Arturo Rawson, President of Argentina (d. 1952)
 * June 5 – Georges Mandel, French politician, World War II hero (d. 1944)
 * June 9
 * John Edensor Littlewood, British mathematician (d. 1977)
 * Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski, Prime Minister of Poland (d. 1962)
 * Harry Gribbon, American comedy actor (d. 1961)
 * June 21 – Harry A. Marmer, Ukrainian-born American mathematician, oceanographer (d. 1953)
 * June 22 – Milan Vidmar, Slovenian electrical engineer, chess player (d. 1962)
 * June 27 – Guilhermina Suggia, Portuguese cellist (d. 1950)
 * June 29 – Izidor Kürschner, Hungarian football player and coach (d. 1941)

July

 * July 2 – Nikolai Krylenko, Russian Bolshevik and Soviet politician (d. 1938)
 * 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 9 – Luo Meizhen, Chinese supercentenarian (d. 2013)
 * July 14 – King Sisavang Vong of Laos (d. 1959)
 * July 15
 * Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi, 1st prime minister of Sudan (d. 1959)
 * July 16 – Hakuun Yasutani, Japanese Sōtō rōshi (d. 1973)
 * July 19
 * Dumitru Coroamă, Romanian soldier and fascist activist (d. 1956)
 * Aristides de Sousa Mendes, Portuguese diplomat, humanitarian (d. 1954)
 * July 20 – Michitarō Komatsubara, Japanese general (d. 1940)
 * July 28 – Monte Attell, American boxer (d. 1960)
 * July 29 – Theda Bara, American silent film actress (d. 1955)

August

 * August 1 – George de Hevesy, Hungarian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1966)

September

 * September 6 – Otto Kruger, American actor (d. 1974)
 * September 7 – Jovita Idar, Mexican-American journalist and political activist (d. 1946)
 * September 11 – D. H. Lawrence, English novelist (d. 1930)
 * September 20 – Enrico Mizzi, 6th Prime Minister of Malta (d. 1950)
 * September 21 – Thomas de Hartmann, Russian composer (d. 1956)
 * September 22
 * Ben Chifley, 16th Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1951)
 * Erich von Stroheim, Austrian-born motion picture actor, director (d. 1957)
 * September 25 – Mineichi Koga, Japanese admiral (d. 1944)
 * September 27 – Harry Blackstone Sr., American magician and illusionist (d. 1965)

October

 * October 3 – Sophie Treadwell, American playwright, 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 19 – Charles E. Merrill, American banker, co-founder of Merrill Lynch (d. 1956)
 * October 24 – Rachel Katznelson-Shazar, Zionist political figure, wife of third President of Israel (d. 1975)
 * October 28 – Per Albin Hansson, 2-time prime minister of Sweden (d. 1946)
 * October 30 – Ezra Pound, American poet (d. 1972)

November

 * November 1 – Anton Flettner, German aviation engineer, inventor (d. 1961)
 * November 2 – Harlow Shapley, American astronomer (d. 1972)
 * November 5 – Will Durant, American philosopher, writer (d. 1981)
 * November 8 – Tomoyuki Yamashita, Japanese general (d. 1946)
 * November 9 (October 28 (O.S.)) – Velimir Khlebnikov, Russian poet (d. 1922)
 * November 11 – George S. Patton, American general (d. 1945)
 * November 15 – Frederick Handley-Page, British aviation pioneer, aircraft company founder (d. 1962)
 * November 26 – Heinrich Brüning, Chancellor of Germany 1930-1932 (d. 1970)
 * November 30
 * Albert Kesselring, German field marshal (d. 1960)
 * Ma Zhanshan, Chinese general (d. 1950)

December

 * December 2 – George Minot, American physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1950)
 * December 13 – Mario Talavera, Mexican songwriter (d. 1960)
 * December 19
 * John Lavarack, Australian general, Governor of Queensland (1946-1957) (d. 1957)
 * King Oliver, American jazz musician (d. 1938)

Date unknown

 * Geza von Hoffmann, Austrian-Hungarian eugenicist and writer (d. 1921)
 * Alessandro Tonini, Italian aeronautical engineer and aircraft designer and manufacturer (d. 1932)

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 7 – Iwasaki Yataro, Japanese industrialist, Founder of Mitsubishi (b. 1835)
 * February 8 – Nikolai Severtzov, Russian explorer, naturalist (b. 1827)
 * February 19 – José María Pinedo, Argentinian naval commander (b. 1795)
 * March 12 – Próspero Fernández Oreamuno, President of Costa Rica (b. 1834)
 * March 13 – Giorgio Mitrovich, Maltese politician (b. 1795)
 * March 22 – Sir Harry Smith Parkes, British diplomat (b. 1828)
 * April 2 – Justo Rufino Barrios, Central American leader (b. 1835)
 * April 6 – Eduard Vogel von Falckenstein, Prussian general (b. 1797)
 * 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 (died as result of becoming the first person to jump from the Brooklyn Bridge) (b. 1851)
 * May 20 – Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen, 29th United States Secretary of State (b. 1817)
 * 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 21 – Karolina Sobańska, Polish noble, agent (b. 1795)
 * July 23 – Ulysses S. Grant, 63, American Civil War general, 18th President of the United States (b. 1822)
 * August – Aga Khan II, Iranian religious leader (b. 1830)
 * August 6 – Emil Zsigmondy, Austrian mountaineer (b. 1861)
 * August 10 – James W. Marshall, American contractor, builder of Sutter's Mill (b. 1810)
 * August 29 – Moriz Ludassy, Hungarian journalist (b. 1825)
 * September 2 – Giuseppe Bonavia, Maltese architect (b. 1821)
 * September 5 – Zuo Zongtang, Chinese general and politician (b. 1812)
 * 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 Carl Spitzweg.jpg]]
 * Jumbo, African elephant, star attraction in P. T. Barnum's circus (train accident) (b. 1861)
 * Carl Spitzweg, German romanticist painter (b. 1808)
 * October 1 – Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, British politician and philanthropist (b.1801)
 * October 3 – Mazhar Nanautawi, Indian freedom struggle activist and founding figure of Mazahir Uloom (b. 1821)
 * October 5 – Thomas C. Durant, American railroad financier (b. 1820)
 * October 29
 * George B. McClellan, American Civil War general, politician (b. 1826)
 * Juan Bautista Topete, Spanish admiral and politician (b. 1821)
 * Thomas Andrews Hendricks.jpg]]November 16 – Louis Riel, Canadian-American leader (executed) (b. 1844)
 * November 8 – John McCullough, Irish-American actor (b. 1832)
 * 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 13 – Benjamin Gratz Brown, American politician (b. 1826)
 * 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)

In fiction

 * September 2–September 7 – The film Back to the Future Part III takes place during this time. Dr. Emmett Brown is initially murdered by Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen in Hill Valley, California (1885); however, Marty McFly later prevents this murder.
 * 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.
 * The plot of An American Tail is set in this period.
 * Stephen Gordon, protagonist of The Well of Loneliness, is born on 24th December 1885.