1886 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal Government">Federal government of the United States">Federal Government

• President: Grover Cleveland
• Vice President: vacant
• Chief Justice: Morrison Waite
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: John G. Carlisle
• Congress: 49th

  Governors

Lieutenant Governors

Events

• February 6-9 - Seattle riot of 1886: Anti-Chinese sentiments result in riots in Seattle, Washington.
• February 14 - The first train load of oranges leaves Los Angeles via the transcontinental railroad.
• March 17 - Carrollton Massacre: 20 African Americans are killed in Mississippi.
• April 24 - Father Augustine Tolton, the first Roman Catholic priest from the U.S. to identify himself publicly as African American, is ordained in Rome.
• May 1 - A general strike begins in the United States, which escalates on May 4 into the Haymarket affair in Chicago and eventually wins the eight-hour workday in the U.S.
• May 8 - Pharmacist Dr. John Stith Pemberton invents a carbonated beverage that will be named 'Coca-Cola'.
• May 17 - Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that corporations have the same rights as living persons.
• May 29 - Pharmacist John Pemberton begins to advertise Coca-Cola.
• June 2 - U.S. President Grover Cleveland marries Frances Folsom in the White House, becoming the only president to wed in the executive mansion. She is 27 years his junior.
• June 9 - The centennial of the Stoughton Musical Society is celebrated.
• July 23 - Steve Brodie is reported to have made a jump from the Brooklyn Bridge, a claim subsequently disputed.
• August 20 - A massive hurricane demolishes the town of Indianola, Texas.
• August 31 - The 6.9–7.3 Charleston earthquake affects southeastern South Carolina with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X. Sixty people are killed and damage is estimated at $5–6 million.
• September 4 - Indian Wars: After almost 30 years of fighting, Apache leader Geronimo surrenders with his last band of warriors to General Nelson Miles at Skeleton Canyon in Arizona.
• October 28 - In New York Harbor, U.S. President Grover Cleveland dedicates the Statue of Liberty.

  Ongoing

• Gilded Age

  Sport

• October 23 - American Association's St. Louis Browns win the First 1886 World Series by defeating the National League's Chicago White Stockings 4 games to 2. Final game was played at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, Missouri

  Births

• January 3 - John G. Fletcher, poet and author
• January 11 - Chester Conklin, comic film actor
• February 27 - Hugo Black, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1927 to 1937 and Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1937 to 1971
• March 7 - Jessie Coles Grayson, African American contralto and film actress
• March 8 - Edward Calvin Kendall, biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1950
• March 9 - Robert L. Eichelberger, general
• March 24 - Edward Weston, photographer
• April 3 - Dooley Wilson, African American drummer, singer and actor
• c. April 26 - Ma Rainey, born Gertrude Malissa Nix Pridgett, African American blues singer
• May 26 - Al Jolson, entertainer
• June 6 - Tyler Brooke, actor and singer
• October 30 - Zoë Akins, dramatist
• November 9 - Ed Wynn, actor
• December 5 - Rose Wilder Lane, journalist and libertarian
• December 9 - Clarence Birdseye, founder of the modern frozen food industry
• December 18 - Ty Cobb, baseball outfielder
• December 19 - Charles M. Cooke, Jr., admiral
• December 25 - Kid Ory, jazz trombonist and bandleader

  Deaths

• January 13 - Thomas Wakeman, founded the first Sioux Indian YMCA
• January 22 - James T. Farley, U.S. Senator from California from 1879 to 1885.
• January 26 - David Rice Atchison, U.S. Senator from Missouri from 1844 to 1855
• February 9 - Winfield Scott Hancock, Civil War Union general and political candidate
• February 12 - Horatio Seymour, 18th Governor of New York, Democratic Party nominee for President of the United States in the presidential election of 1868
• March 8 - John Franklin Miller, U.S. Senator from California from 1881 to 1886
• March 9 - Jerome B. Chaffee, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1876 to 1879
• March 13 - Austin Flint, co-founder of Buffalo Medical College and president of the American Medical Association
• April 27 - H. H. Richardson, architect
• May 15 - Emily Dickinson, poet
• May 21 - Stephen Pearl Andrews, anarchist and proponent of pantarchy
• June 26 - David Davis, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1877 to 1883
• July 16 - Ned Buntline, publisher, dime novelist and publicist
• August 4 - Samuel J. Tilden, 25th Governor of New York from 1875 to 1876 and 1876 Democratic presidential candidate
• August 5 - Robert Allen, Union army brigadier general
• August 10 - John W. Stevenson, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1871 to 1877
• August 30 - Ferris Jacobs, Jr., politician
• October 10 - David Levy Yulee, U.S. Senator from Florida from 1845 to 1851 and from 1855 to 1861
• November 18 - Chester A. Arthur, 21st President of the United States from 1881 to 1885, 20th Vice President of the United States from March to September 1881
• November 21 - Charles Francis Adams Sr., United States Minister to the United Kingdom, son of John Quincy Adams
• December 26 - John A. Logan, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1871 to 1877