1885 Events

1885 Home Insurance Building Built
The Home Insurance Building was built in 1885 in Chicago, Illinois, USA and destroyed in 1931 to make way for the Field Building (now the LaSalle National Bank Building). It was the first...
1885 Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" Is Published
"PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. ..." —Mark Twain ("The Author") in the foreword/introduction to Huckleberry Finn
1885 Mohandes Gandhi's Father Dies at 63
Mohan passed the matriculation examination of Bombay University in 1887. His father’s death a year earlier had strained the means of the family. Being the only boy in the family who had p...
1885 Nikola Tesla quits working for Edison
Tesla claims he was offered US$50,000 (~ US$1.1 million in 2007, adjusted for inflation) if he redesigned Edison's inefficient motor and generators, making an improvement in both service ...
1885 William Carey Wright and Anna Lloyd Jones Divorce
Soon after Wright turned 14 his parents separated. Anna had been unhappy for some time with William's inability to provide for his family and asked him to leave. The divorce was finalized...
1885 Jan 11 Alice Paul Is Born
Alice Paul, chief strategist for the militant wing of the suffrage movement and author of the Equal Rights Amendment, was born on January 11, 1885 in Moorestown, New Jersey. The ...
1885 Mar 4 Grover Cleveland is inaugurated as the 22nd president of the United States
On the East Portico of the Capitol, the former Governor of New York was administered the oath of office by Chief Justice Morrison Waite. A Democrat whose popularity, in part, was the re...
1885 May 2 First Issue Of Good Housekeeping
Good Housekeeping made its debut on May 2, 1885. One of several popular women's magazines founded in the 1880s and 1890s, Good Housekeeping provided information about running a home, a br...
1885 Jun 19 Statue Of Liberty Arrives In New York
Construction of the statue began in 1875 in France, and was completed in June 1884. A design patent, for the statue was issued, by the United States Patent Office, on February 18, 1879. ...
1885 Jul 6 Louis Pasteur Uses First Successful Rabies Vaccine
"Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: My strength lies solely in my tenacity." —Louis Pasteur
1885 Jul 14 Sarah Goode Becomes First African-American Woman to Receive a Patent
Sarah E. Goode (b.1850s-d. c. 1905) was the first African-American woman to receive a patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. However this claim is disputed by some tha...
1885 Jul 23 Ulysses S. Grant Dies
Ulysses S. Grant died on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, ...
1885 Sep 2 The Rock Springs Massacre
On September 2, 1885, a mob of white coal miners attacked their Chinese co-workers (both groups were employed by the Union Pacific Coal Company) in Rock Springs, Wyoming Territory, over a...
1885 Sep 15 Jumbo the Elephant is Killed by a Locomotive
Jumbo's private car was some distance down the main line, and it was while walking to this that a shrill whistle signaled the approach of an oncoming freight train on the Grand Trunk rail...
1885 Nov Daimler-Maybach Builds Reitwagen, First Motorcycle
In November 1885, Daimler installed a smaller version of this engine in a wooden bicycle, creating the first motorcycle (Patent 36-423impff & Sohn "Vehicle with gas or petroleum drive mac...