What Happened in 1885

Major Events

  • Feb 5 King Leopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo as a personal colonial possession
  • Feb 5 News of the fall of Khartoum reaches London
  • Feb 18 Mark Twain publishes the "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" in the US

1885 in Music

Did You Know?

Leo Daft opens America's 1st commercially operated electric streetcar in Baltimore

August 10, 1885


More People Born in 1885
More 1885 Deaths

Famous Weddings in 1885

  • Apr 29 Novelist Edith Wharton (23) weds Edward Robbins Wharton (35)
  • May 5 German author and future Nobel Laureate Gerhart Hauptmann (22) weds Marie Thienemann in Radebeul, Saxony; separate in 1893, divorce in 1904
  • Jun 24 College professor and future 28th US President Woodrow Wilson (28) weds Presbyterian minister's daughter and artist Ellen Louise Axson (25) in Savannah, Georgia, until her death in 1914

More Weddings in 1885