1884

Year 1884 (MDCCCLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Sunday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1884

January - March

January 4 - The Fabian Society is founded in London.
January 5 - Princess Ida premieres at the Savoy Theatre.
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 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.
May 1 - The eight-hour workday is first proclaimed by the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in the United States. May 1st, 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

July 5 - Germany takes possession of 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 - 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).
December 6 - The Washington Monument is completed.
December 16 - The World Cotton Centennial World's Fair opens in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Undated

The Stefan-Boltzmann law is reformulated by Ludwig Boltzmann.
Mexican General Manuel Mondragón creates the Mondragón Rifle the worlds first automatic rifle.
Mark Twain writes 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 Derby County Football Club is formed.
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.

Births

January - June

January 12 - Texas Guinan, American vaudeville performer (d. 1933)
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 31 - Theodor Heuss, German politician and publicist (d. 1963)
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)

February 13 - Alfred Carlton Gilbert, American athlete and inventor (d. 1961)
February 14 - Hezekiah M. Washburn, American missionary (d. 1972)
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)
April 4 - Isoroku Yamamoto, Japanese naval commander (d. 1943)
April 6 - Walter Huston, American actor (d. 1950)
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, Austrian 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)
August 8 - Sara Teasdale, American poet (d. 1933)
August 10 - Panait Istrati, Romanian writer (d. 1935)
August 23 - Will Cuppy, American humorist (d. 1949)
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)

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)
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)
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)
March 1 - Isaac Todhunter, English mathematician (b. 1820)
March 21 - Ezra Abbot, American Bible scholar (b. 1819)
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 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)