Directory

1884 CE

Prince Leopold, the youngest son and eighth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, dies, aged 30 in Cannes (France) following a fall complicated by his haemophilia. His son, Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, is born nearly 4 months later. LaMarcus Adna Thompson opens the "Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway" at Coney Island, New York City. 1884 United States presidential election: Democratic governor of New York Grover Cleveland defeats Republican James G. Blaine in a very close contest, to win the first of his non-consecutive terms.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • April 4 – The Treaty of Valparaiso, an armistice between Chile and Bolivia, ends the War of the Pacific; Bolivia is obliged to cede Antofagasta to Chile, leaving Bolivia as a landlocked country.source
  • July 14 – German administration is established in Cameroon.source
  • November 4 – 1884 United States presidential election: Democratic governor of New York Grover Cleveland defeats Republican James G. Blaine in a very close contest, to win the first of his non-consecutive terms.source
  • December 1 – Porfirio Díaz returns as President of Mexico, an office he will hold until 1911.source

Conflict & Security

  • March 13 – The Siege of Khartoum begins in the Sudan as part of the Mahdist War: an Egyptian garrison led by British General Charles Gordon and Sudanese civilians are besieged by Mahdist forces; the city falls on January 26, 1885.source
  • April 24 – A German protectorate is established over South-West Africa.source
  • July 5 – Germany takes possession of Togoland.source
  • August 22 – The Sino-French War (for control of Tonkin) breaks out (continues to April 1885).source
  • August 23 – Sino-French War: Battle of Fuzhou – French Admiral Amédée Courbet's Far East Squadron virtually destroys China's Fujian Fleet.source
  • December 4 – Reformers in Korea who admire the Meiji Restoration in Japan stage the Gapsin Coup, with Japan's help. China intervenes to rescue the king and help suppress the rebels.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • June – The first ascent is made of Castle Mountain in the Canadian Rockies, by geologist Arthur Philemon Coleman.source
  • July 1 – First International Forestry Exhibition opens in Edinburgh, Scotland.source
  • September 23–24 (night) – Steamship Arctique runs aground near Cape Virgenes, leading to the discovery of nearby placer gold and beginning the Tierra del Fuego gold rush.source
  • November 15 – The Berlin Conference, which regulates European colonisation and trade in Africa, begins (ends February 26, 1885).source
  • December 16 – The World Cotton Centennial world's fair opens in New Orleans.source
  • Scottish Plymouth Brethren missionary Frederick Stanley Arnot identifies the source of the Zambezi River, near Kalene Hill.source

Religion & Belief

  • April 20 – Pope Leo XIII publishes the encyclical Humanum genus, denouncing Freemasonry and certain liberal beliefs which he considers to be associated with it.source
  • The first Christian missionary arrives in Korea.source

Economy & Finance

  • May 4 – The Panic of 1884 creates a credit shortage that accelerates the current United States economic recession into the Depression of 1882–1885.source
  • May 16 – Sweden's Finance Minister Robert Themptander becomes his country's Prime Minister (1884–88).source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • March – John Joseph Montgomery conducts the first manned glider flights in the United States near Otay, California.source
  • May 1 – The eight-hour workday is first proclaimed by the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in the United States. This date, called May Day or Labour Day, becomes a holiday recognized in almost every industrialized country.source
  • May 16 – Angelo Moriondo of Turin is granted a patent for an espresso machine.source
  • June 13 – LaMarcus Adna Thompson opens the "Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway" at Coney Island, New York City.source
  • July 3 – The Dow Jones Transportation Average, consisting of eleven transportation-related companies (nine railroads and two non-rail companies, Western Union and Pacific Mail), is created in the United States. The index is the oldest stock index to remain in use.source
  • July 7 – Nagasaki Shipyard, predecessor of the Japanese aircraft and shipbuilding business Mitsubishi, is founded on the island of Kyushu.source
  • August 5 – The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty is laid on Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor.source
  • November 2 – Timișoara, Romania, is the first town in Europe with streets illuminated by electric light.source
  • Thomas Parker builds a practical production electric car in Wolverhampton (England) using his own specially designed high-capacity rechargeable batteries.source
  • Mexican General Manuel Mondragón designs an early form of the Mondragón rifle, the world's first automatic rifle.source

Science & Discovery

  • January – Arthur Conan Doyle's anonymous story "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement" appears in the Cornhill Magazine (London). Based on the disappearance of the crew of the Mary Celeste in 1872, many of the fictional elements introduced by Doyle come to replace the real events in the popular imagination.source
  • October 22 – The International Meridian Conference meeting in Washington, D.C., fixes the Greenwich meridian as the world's prime meridian (voted on October 13).source
  • The Stefan–Boltzmann law is reformulated by Ludwig Boltzmann.source

Health & Medicine

  • January 7 – German microbiologist Robert Koch isolates Vibrio cholerae, the cholera bacillus, working in India.source
  • September 15 – The invention of local anesthesia by ophthalmologist Karl Koller is made public at a medical congress in Heidelberg, Germany.source
  • The water hyacinth is introduced in the United States, and quickly becomes an invasive species.source

Crime & Justice

  • December 1 – American Old West: Near Frisco, New Mexico, deputy sheriff Elfego Baca holds off a gang of 80 Texan cowboys, who want to kill him for arresting cowboy Charles McCarthy (the cowboys have been terrorizing the area's Hispanos, and Baca is working against them).source
  • December 9 – Tom Dudley and Edwin Stephens are convicted of murder in the survival cannibalism case of R v. Dudley and Stephens in the English courts.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • The Yellow Crane Tower last burns in Wuhan.source

Climate & Environment

  • April 24 – The Colchester earthquake ("the Great English earthquake") measuring EMS-98 VIII (Heavily damaging) is the UK's most destructive, although no direct fatalities can be confirmed.source
  • August 10 – An earthquake measuring 5.5 affects a very large portion of the eastern United States. The shock has a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII (Very strong). Chimneys are toppled in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Property damage is severe in Jamaica, Queens and Amityville, New York.source

Culture & Society

  • January 4 – The Fabian Society is founded in London to promote gradualist social progress.source
  • January 5 – Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera Princess Ida, a satire on feminism, premières at the Savoy Theatre, London.source
  • January 18 – William Price attempts to cremate his dead baby son, Iesu Grist, in Wales. Later tried and acquitted on the grounds that cremation is not contrary to English law, he is thus able to carry out the ceremony (the first in the United Kingdom in modern times) on March 14, setting a legal precedent.source
  • February 1 – A New English Dictionary on historical principles, part 1 (edited by James A. H. Murray), the first fascicle of what will become The Oxford English Dictionary, is published in England.source
  • February 5 – Derby County Football Club is founded in England.source
  • June 4 (N.S.) (May 23 O.S.) – The future flag of Estonia is consecrated as the flag of the Estonian Students' Society.source
  • June 28 – The Norwegian Association for Women's Rights (Norsk Kvinnesaksforening) is founded. Also this year, the Fredrika Bremer Association (Fredrika Bremer Förbundet) is founded in Sweden for the same purpose.source
  • July 23 – The first tennis tournaments, held in the grounds of Shrubland Hall, Leamington Spa, England, are recorded in today's Courier.source
  • September 5 – Staten Island Academy is founded.source
  • October 6 – The United States Naval War College is established in Newport, Rhode Island.source
  • October 18 – The University College of North Wales, Bangor, is founded in the UK.source
  • October 22 – The "Nine Graces", nine women who are the first to be awarded degrees from the Royal University of Ireland, become the first women in the United Kingdom to be awarded degrees. They include Alice Oldham, Isabella Mulvany and Charlotte M. Taylor.source
  • October 30 – Hosay massacre in Trinidad: British colonial authorities fire on Indian indentured labourers marking a religious festival, killing at least 9.source
  • November 1 – Leicester City F.C. play their first match, as Leicester Fosse Football Club, in England.source
  • November 1 – The Irish Gaelic Athletic Association is founded in Thurles, Ireland.source
  • December 6 – The Third Reform Act widens the adult male electorate in the United Kingdom to around 60%.source
  • December 6 – The Washington Monument is completed in Washington, D.C., becoming the tallest structure in the world at this date.source
  • December 10 – Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is first published, in London.source
  • December 30 – Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 is premiered in Leipzig, bringing the composer his first great success.source
  • Police training schools are established in every prefecture in Japan.source

Births

  • February 1 – Bradbury Robinson, American football player, who threw the first forward pass in American football history (d. 1949)source
  • February 26 – John Cyril Porte, Irish-born British flying boat pioneer (d. 1919)source
  • March 24 – Peter Debye, Dutch chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1966)source
  • May 8 – Harry S. Truman, 33rd president of the United States (d. 1972)source
  • May 28 – Edvard Beneš, Czechoslovak politician, prime minister and president of Czechoslovakia (d. 1948)source
  • June 13 – Gerald Gardner, English founder of the Wiccan religion (d. 1964)source
  • July 4 – Louis B. Mayer, American film producer, studio mogul (d. 1957)source
  • August 28 – Peter Fraser, 24th prime minister of New Zealand (d. 1950)source
  • September 24 – İsmet İnönü, Turkish soldier, statesman, 3-time prime minister of Turkey and 2nd president of Turkey (d. 1973)source
  • October 11 – Eleanor Roosevelt, American politician, diplomat, activist, and First Lady of the United States (d. 1962)source
  • December 3 – Rajendra Prasad, Indian politician, 1st president of India (d. 1963)source
  • December 7 – Petru Groza, Romanian politician, 46th prime minister of Romania (d. 1958)source
  • December 29 – Ted Theodore, Australian politician, Premier of Queensland (d. 1950)source
  • December 31 – Stanley Forman Reed, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1980)source

Deaths

  • February 14 – Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, mother of Theodore Roosevelt (b. 1835)source
  • February 14 – Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt, first wife of Theodore Roosevelt (b. 1861)source
  • March 19 – Elias Lönnrot, Finnish philologist, collector of traditional Finnish oral poetry (b. 1802)source
  • March 28 – Prince Leopold, the youngest son and eighth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, dies, aged 30 in Cannes (France) following a fall complicated by his haemophilia. His son, Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, is born nearly 4 months later.source
  • March 28 – Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, youngest son of Queen Victoria (b. 1853)source
  • May 6 – Judah P. Benjamin, American politician, US senator from Louisiana, Cabinet officer of the Confederate States (b. 1811)source
  • May 12 – Bedřich Smetana, Czech composer (b. 1824)source
  • May 29 – Sir Henry Bartle Frere, British colonial administrator (b. 1815)source
  • June 19 – Juan Bautista Alberdi, Argentine politician, writer and main Constitution promoter (b. 1810)source
  • July 1 – Allan Pinkerton, American detective (b. 1819)source
  • July 10 – Paul Morphy, American chess player (b. 1837)source
  • July 15 – Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps, American educator, author (b. 1793)source
  • September 2 – Karl Eberhard Herwarth von Bittenfeld, Prussian field marshal (b. 1796)source
  • December 1 – William Swainson, second, and last, Attorney-General of the Crown Colony of New Zealand (b. 1809)source