1885

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File:Decade.png ( 1880s: )     1885 link
Karl Benz produces the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, regarded as the first automobile
year 1885

Events

• 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 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 26 – The final act of the Berlin Conference regulates European colonization and trade, in the scramble for Africa.
• 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 22^nd President of the United States.
  • 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.
• 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 30 – A bill is signed in the New York State legislature, forming the Niagara Falls State Park.
• May 2 - The Congo Free State is established, by King Leopold II of Belgium.
• 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 – Japan Berery, as predecessor name was Kirin Holdings was 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.
• 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 30 – A British force abolishes the Boer republic of Stellaland, and adds it to British Bechuanaland.
• 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 14–28 – 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 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).
• Butz Thermo-Electric Regulator, as predecessor of Honeywell, was founded in United States.
• BHP (Broken Hill Proprietary), a mining and natural gas product in worldwide, founded in New South Wales, Australia.