1884

This article is about the year 1884.

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	18th century – 19th century – 20th century
Decades:	1850s  1860s  1870s  – 1880s –  1890s  1900s  1910s
Years:	1881 1882 1883 – 1884 – 1885 1886 1887

1884 in topic:
Humanities
Archaeology – Architecture – Art – Literature – Music
By country
Australia – Canada – France – Germany – Mexico – South Africa – US – UK
Other topics
Rail Transport – Science – Sports
Lists of leaders
Colonial Governors – State leaders
Birth and death categories
Births – Deaths
Establishments and disestablishments categories
Establishments – Disestablishments
Works category
Works
v · Gregorian calendar	1884 MDCCCLXXXIV
Ab urbe condita	2637
Armenian calendar	1333 ԹՎ ՌՅԼԳ
Assyrian calendar	6634
Bahá'í calendar	40 – 41
Bengali calendar	1291
Berber calendar	2834
British Regnal year	47 Vict. 1 – 48 Vict. 1
Buddhist calendar	2428
Burmese calendar	1246
Byzantine calendar	7392 – 7393
Chinese calendar	癸未年十二月初四日 (4520/4580-12-4) — to — 甲申年十一月十五日 (4521/4581-11-15)
Coptic calendar	1600 – 1601
Ethiopian calendar	1876 – 1877
Hebrew calendar	5644 – 5645
Hindu calendars
- Bikram Samwat	1940 – 1941
- Shaka Samvat	1806 – 1807
- Kali Yuga	4985 – 4986
Holocene calendar	11884
Iranian calendar	1262 – 1263
Islamic calendar	1301 – 1302
Japanese calendar	Meiji 17 (明治17年)
Korean calendar	4217
Minguo calendar	28 before ROC 民前28年
Thai solar calendar	2427
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Year 1884 (MDCCCLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Sunday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar.

Events

March 13: Battle of Khartoum.

January–March

• January 4 – The Fabian Society is founded in London.
• January 5 – Gilbert & Sullivan's Princess Ida has its première at the Savoy Theatre, London.
• January 18 – Dr William Price attempts to cremate the body of his infant son, Iesu Grist (Jesus Christ) Price, setting a legal precedent for cremation in the U.K.
• February 1 – The first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is published.
• February 5 – The Derby County Football Club is founded
• March 7 – The Diocese of Madrid-Alcalá is founded.
• March 13 – The siege of Khartoum, Sudan begins (ends on January 26, 1885).

April–June

• April 22 – The Colchester earthquake, England, the UK's most destructive, occurs.
• April 22 – German protectorate in South-West Africa.
• May 1 – The eight-hour workday is first proclaimed by the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in the United States. May 1, called May Day or Labour Day, is now a holiday recognized in almost every industrialized country.
• June 4 – The Estonian flag is consecrated as the flag of the Estonian Students Society.

July–September

August 5: Statue of Liberty begun.

• July 5 – Germany takes possession of Togoland.
• July 14 – German administration in Cameroon.
• July 23 – Today's Courier records the first tennis tournaments held on the grounds of Shrubland Hall, Leamington Spa, England.
• August 5 – The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty is laid on Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor.
• August 10 – A severe earthquake, magnitude 5.5, (intensity VII) occurs off the northeast Atlantic coast. The area affected extends from central Virginia to southern Maine, and west as far as Cleveland.
• September 5 – Staten Island Academy is founded.

October–December

October 6: US Naval War College founded.

• October – International Meridian Conference in Washington, D.C. fixes the Greenwich meridian as the world's prime meridian.
• October 6 – The United States Naval War College is established in Newport, Rhode Island.
• October 18 – The University of Wales, Bangor (UK) is founded.
• October 22 – The first woman receives a degree from the Royal University of Ireland.
• November 1 – The Irish Gaelic Athletic Association is founded in Thurles, Ireland.
• November 2 – Timişoara is the first town of Europe with streets illuminated by electric light.
• November 4 – United States presidential election, 1884: Democrat Grover Cleveland defeats Republican James G. Blaine in a very close contest to win the first of his non-consecutive terms.
• November 15 – The Berlin Conference which regulates European colonisation and trade in Africa begins (ends February 26, 1885).
• 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 were terrorizing the area's Hispanos and Baca was working against them).
  • Porfirio Díaz returns as President of Mexico, an office he will hold until 1911.
• December 6 – The Washington Monument is completed.
• December 16 – The World Cotton Centennial World's Fair opens in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Date unknown

• The Stefan-Boltzmann law is reformulated by Ludwig Boltzmann.
• Mexican General Manuel Mondragón creates the Mondragón Rifle the worlds first automatic rifle.
• Mark Twain publishes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
• The first ascent is made of Castle Mountain by geologist Arthur Philemon Coleman.
• The water hyacinth is introduced in the U.S. and quickly becomes an invasive species.
• Parliamentarism is introduced in Norway.
• The Yellow Crane Tower last burns in Wuhan.
• The Leicester City Football Club is formed.
• The Third Reform Act gives the vote to almost every adult male in England.
• 1884–1885 – France conquers Vietnam.
• Police training schools are established in every prefecture in Japan.
• Reformers in Korea who admire the Meiji Restoration in Japan stage a coup with Japan's help. China intervens to rescue the king and help suppress the rebels. Afterward both China and Japan agree to withdraw their troops and military advisers.
• The first Christian missionary arrives in Korea.
• Depression (economics) in the USA.

Births

January–June

• January 2 – Ben-Zion Dinur, Russian-born Israeli educator, historian and politician (d. 1973)
• January 12
  • Texas Guinan, American vaudeville performer (d. 1933)
  • Charles Armijo Woodruff, 11th Governor of American Samoa (d. 1945)
• January 13 – Sophie Tucker, Russian-born singer and comedian (d. 1966)
• January 21 – Roger Nash Baldwin, American social activist (d. 1981)
• January 23 – Ralph DePalma, Italian-born race car driver (d. 1956)
• January 28 – Auguste Piccard, Swiss physicist, balloonist, and inventor (d. 1962)
• January 30 – Kamiyama Sojin, Japanese actor in American silent films, (d. 1954)
• January 31 – Theodor Heuss, German politician and publicist (d. 1963)
• February 1 – Bradbury Robinson, who threw the first forward pass in American football history in 1906 (d. 1949)
• February 8 – Burt Mustin, American actor (d. 1977)
• February 10 – Frederick Hawksworth, GWR chief mechanical engineer (d. 1976)
• February 12
  • Max Beckmann, German painter and graphic artist (d. 1950)
  • Marie Vassilieff, Russian artist (d. 1957)
  • Johan Laidoner, seminal figure of Estonian history between the World Wars (d.1953)
• February 13 – Alfred Carlton Gilbert, American athlete and inventor (d. 1961)
• February 16 – Robert J. Flaherty, American filmmaker (d. 1951)
• February 18 – Andrew Watson Myles, Canadian politician (d. 1970)
• February 22 – Abe Attell, American boxer (d. 1970)
• March 6 – R. Williams Parry, Welsh poet (d. 1956)
• March 13 – Sir Hugh Walpole, English novelist (d. 1941)
• March 17 – Alcide Nunez, American jazz musician (d. 1934)
• March 24 – Peter Debye, Dutch chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1966)
• March 25 – Georges Imbert, Alsatian chemist (d. 1950)
• March 26 – Wilhelm Backhaus, German pianist (d. 1969)
• March 27 – James Cruze, American motion picture director (d. 1942)
• April 1 – Laurette Taylor, American stage actress (d. 1946)
• April 4 – Isoroku Yamamoto, Japanese naval commander (d. 1943)
• April 6 – Walter Huston, American actor (d. 1950)
• April 7 – Bronisław Malinowski, Polish anthropologist (d. 1942)
• April 12
  • Otto Fritz Meyerhof, German-born physician and biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1951)
  • Tenby Davies, Welsh half-mile world champion runner (d. 1932)
• May 1 – Henry Norwest, Canadian World War I sniper (d. 1918)
• May 8 – Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States (d. 1972)
• May 10 – Olga Petrova, English-born actress (d. 1977)
• May 14 – Claudius Dornier, German aircraft designer (d. 1969)
• May 21 – Manuel Pérez y Curis, Uruguayan poet (b. 1920)
• May 27 – Max Brod, Austrian author (d. 1968)
• May 28 – Edvard Beneš, Czechoslovak politician (d. 1948)

July–December

• July 12 – Amedeo Modigliani, Italian painter and sculptor (d. 1920)
• July 15 – Phraya Manopakorn Nititada, Thailand's first Prime Minister (d. 1948)
• July 18 – Alberto di Jorio, former head of the Vatican Bank and secretary of the 1958 conclave (d. 1979)
• July 23 – Emil Jannings, Swiss actor (d. 1950)
• July 27 – Kathleen Howard, Canadian/American opera singer & character actress (d. 1956)
• August 8 – Sara Teasdale, American poet (d. 1933)
• August 10 – Robert G. Fowler, American pioneer aviator (d. 1966)
• August 10 – Panait Istrati, Romanian writer (d. 1935)
• August 15 – Mary Nash, American actress (d. 1976)
• August 23 – Will Cuppy, American humorist (d. 1949)
• August 27 – Harry Antrim, American actor (d. 1967)
• August 30 – Theodor Svedberg, Swedish chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1971)
• September 17 – Charles Tomlinson Griffes, American composer (d. 1920)
• September 24
  • İsmet İnönü, Turkish soldier, statesman and the second President of Turkey (d. 1973)
  • September 24 – Hugo Schmeisser, German weapons designer (d. 1953)
• September 30 – Bessie Barriscale, American actress (d. 1965)
• October 7 – Major Harold Geiger, U.S. Army aviation pioneer (d. 1927)
• October 11
  • Friedrich Bergius, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1949)
  • Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the United States (d. 1962)
• October 16 – Rembrandt Bugatti, Italian sculptor (d. 1916)
• October 28 – William Douglas Cook, founder of Eastwoodhill Arboretum and Pukeiti (New Zealand) (d. 1967)
• November 20 – Norman Thomas, American social reformer (d. 1968)
• November 22 – Syed Sulaiman Nadvi, Indian/Pakistani historian, biographer, littérateur and scholar of Islam (d. 1953)
• December 3
  • Walther Stampfli, member of the Swiss Federal Council (d. 1965)
  • Dr Rajendra Prasad, President of India (d. 1963)
• December 25 – Evelyn Nesbit, model & actress, (d. 1967)
• December 30 – Tojo Hideki, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1948)

Date unknown

• M. Louise Gross, American politician and lobbyist (d. 1951)
• Richard Spikes, African American inventor (d. 1962)

Deaths

January–June

• January 6 – Gregor Mendel, Czech geneticist (b. 1822)
• January 25 – Johann Gottfried Piefke, German conductor and composer (b. 1815)
• February 14 – Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt, first wife of Theodore Roosevelt (b. 1861)
• March 1 – Isaac Todhunter, English mathematician (b. 1820)
• March 13 – Leland Stanford, Jr., in memory of whom Stanford University was founded (b. 1868).
• March 19 – Elias Lönnrot, Finnish philologist and collector of traditional Finnish oral poetry (b. 1802).
• March 21 – Ezra Abbot, American Bible scholar (b. 1819)
• March 28 – Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, youngest son of Queen Victoria (b. 1853)
• April 4 – Marie Bashkirtseff, Russian artist (b. 1858)
• April 6 – Emanuel Geibel, poet and dramatist (b. 1815)
• April 24 – Marie Taglioni, ballerina (b. 1804)
• May 12 – Bedřich Smetana, Czech composer (b. 1824)
• May 13 – Cyrus McCormick, American inventor (b. 1809)
• June 19 – Juan Bautista Alberdi, Argentine politician, writer and main Constitution promoter (b. 1810)
• June 21 – Alexander, Prince of Orange, Heir apparent to the Dutch throne (b. 1851)
• June 25 – Hans Rott, Austrian composer (b. 1858)

July–December

• July 1 – Allan Pinkerton, American detective (b. 1819)
• July 10 – Paul Morphy, American chess player (b. 1837)
• July 15 – Henry Wellesley, 1st Earl Cowley, diplomat (b. 1804)
• October 4 – Leona Florentino, Filipina poet (b. 1849)
• October 16 – Bernice Pauahi Bishop, Hawaiian ali‘i (b. 1831)
• October 18 – William VIII, Duke of Brunswick (b. 1806)
• November 16 – František Chvostek, Moravian physician (b. 1835)
• November 25 – Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe, German chemist (b. 1818)
• December 1 – William Swainson (lawyer), second, and last, Attorney-General (New Zealand) of the Crown Colony of New Zealand (b. 1809)
• December 20 – Domenico Consolini, Roman Catholic Cardinal (b. 1806)

References