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 – Philippines – 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

1884 in other calendars

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
- Vikram Samvat	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)
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 12 days
Korean calendar	4217
Minguo calendar	28 before ROC 民前28年
Thai solar calendar	2427

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.
• August 22 – Sino–French War (for control of Tonkin) breaks out (continues to April 1885).
• August 23 – Sino–French War: Battle of Fuzhou: French Admiral Amédée Courbet's Far East Squadron virtually destroys China's Fujian Fleet.
• 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 – Letitia Alice Walkington becomes the first woman to receive 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.
• Scottish Plymouth Brethren missionary Frederick Stanley Arnot identifies the source of the Zambezi river, near Kalene Hill.
• 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.
• Leicester City Football Club is formed.
• The Third Reform Act widens the adult male electorate in the United Kingdom to around 60%.
• 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.
• Economic depression 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)
  • Isaac C. Kidd, American admiral (d. 1941)
• 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 9 – John S. McCain, Sr., American admiral (d. 1945)
• 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 1 – Richard C. Saufley, American naval aviation pioneer (d. 1916)
• 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 8 – Cetshwayo kaMpande, Zulu king (b. 1826)
• 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)