Year 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).

Events of 1886

January - March

January 29 - Karl Benz patent.

• 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, initiated by Otto von Bismarck and politically motivated mass expulsion of ethnic Poles and Jews from Prussia.
• 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 - First train load of oranges left Los Angeles via the transcontinental railroad.
• March - Linfield F.C. is formed in Belfast
• March 3 - The Treaty of Bucharest ends the Serbo-Bulgarian War in the Balkans.
• March 16 - 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.

April - June

May 8: Coca-Cola invented.

• 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 latest possible date (next in 1943).
• May 1 - A general strike begins in the United States which escalates into 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 - Motherwell Football Club formed
  • The US Supreme Court rules on Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co., granting corporations the same rights as living persons.
  • The Football Association approves N. L. Jackson's proposal that each player be awarded a cap for each international match in which he plays.
• 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 first and only president to wed in the executive mansion. She is 27 years his junior.

June 10: Mount Tarawera erupts.

• June 9 - Centennial celebration of the Stoughton Musical Society.
• June 10 - Eruption of Mount Tarawera volcano 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 - Royal Holloway, University of London opened by Queen Victoria in Surrey, United Kingdom.

July - September

Nov.30: Folies Bergere

• 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.
• August 20 - A massive hurricane demolishes the town of Indianola, Texas
• August 31 - Earthquake hits Charlestown, South Carolina USA. Probably between 7.3-7.6 on the Richter Scale. 40,000 left 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 15 - First day of school in the newly founded Alhambra School District.
• September 21 - William Stanley, Jr. patents the first practical alternating current transformer device, the induction coil.

October - December

• October 7 - Spain abolishes slavery in Cuba.
• October 28 - In New York Harbor, US President Grover Cleveland dedicates the Statue of Liberty.
• November 30 - Folies Bergère stages its first revue.
• December 11 - Dial Square FC, a football club from Woolwich, London that will eventually become known as Arsenal FC, play their first match, a 6-0 win over Eastern Wanderers.

Undated

• Maidenhead Citadel Band of The Salvation Army is founded by William Thomas.
• Scotch whiskey 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-drown streetcars of Austria-Hungary, France, Germany and Great Britain are carrying c. 900 million riders per year.

Births

January - June

• January 2 - Florence Lawrence, Canadian-born actress (d. 1938)
• 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)
• February 2 - Frank Lloyd, English-born film director, scriptwriter and producer (d. 1960)
• 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, 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-?mig?y, 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 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 14 - Ernst Robert Curtius, Alsatian philologist (d. 1956)
• April 15 - Tadeusz Kutrzeba, Polish general (d. 1947)
• April 25 - Marie Brémont, 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 Coand?, Romanian aerodynamics pioneer (d. 1972)
• 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 European Union (d. 1963)

July - December

• July 3 - Raymond A. Spruance, American admiral and ambassador (d. 1969)
• July 12 - Jean Hersholt, Danish-born actor (d. 1956)
• July 23 - Walter H. Schottky, German physicist (d. 1976)
• July 24 - Jun'ichir? Tanizaki, Japanese writer (d. 1965)
• July 25 - Bror von Blixen-Finecke, Danish big-game hunter (d. 1946)
• 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 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)
• 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)
• 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.

Deaths

January - June

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

July - December

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

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