1886

• 1886 Jan-Mar: the Great White Ruin continues with the coldest temperatures and heaviest snow on record.
  
• 1886 April: the Black River rises to record heights in the worst Spring flood ever witnessed. The town of Blackwood is inundated. Miraculously no lives are lost, but the town is almost totally destroyed.
  
• 1886 Spring: Blackwood historical simulation ends
• 1886 Severe winter in the western part of Dakota Territory put an end to open range ranching and the Bank of Hamilton (oldest state bank in North Dakota) was opened. The Soo Line Railway began construction in northern Dakota at Fairmont; the Soo completed its lines to Portal in 1893.
• 1886  Jan 1, A great blizzard buried the eastern and southern plains, killing 50 to 85 percent of the cattle herds.
  
• 1886  Feb 27, Hugo Black was born. He became the U.S. Supreme Court Justice who wrote opinions forbidding prayer in schools.
  
• 1886  Mar 3, The Treaty of Bucharest concluded the Serb-Bulgarian war, reestablishing prewar Serbo-Bulgarian borders but leaving Eastern Rumelia and Bulgaria united.
  
• 1886  Mar 17, Carrollton Massacre in Mississippi occurred. 20 Blacks were killed.
  
• 1886  Apr, Abolitionist Frederick Douglass gave a speech in Washington to celebrate the 24th year after the Emancipation Proclamation. He said: "Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.
  
• 1886  May 4, At Haymarket Square in Chicago, a labor demonstration for an eight-hour workday turned into a riot when a bomb exploded. Seven policemen were killed and some 60 others injured. Only one policeman was killed in the strike. Labor leaders were later executed for the bombing.
  
• 1886  May 5, A bomb exploded on the fourth day of a workers' strike in Chicago, Ill.
  
• 1886  May 8, Atlanta pharmacist John Styth Pemberton invented the flavor syrup for Coca-Cola. The name for the soft drink came from his bookkeeper, Frank Robinson. Sales at the soda fountain of Jacob's Pharmacy averaged 9 drinks a day in the first year.
  
• 1886  May 15, Poet Emily Dickinson died in Amherst, Mass.
  
• 1886  Jun 2, President Cleveland married Frances Folsom in a White House ceremony. Cleveland's bride, Frances Folsom, was the 22-year-old daughter of Cleveland's late law partner and friend, Oscar Folsom. The intimate wedding ceremony took place in the White House Blue Room with fewer than 40 people present.(To date, Cleveland is the only president to marry in the Executive Mansion while in office.)
  
• 1886  Jun 10, In New Zealand Mount Tarawera erupted at Rotorua on the North Island. 155 people were killed and several Maori and European settlement were destroyed.
  
• 1886  Jun 13, King Ludwig II of Bavaria drowned in Lake Starnberg. Bavarian leaders had conspired to remove Ludvig II from office and got a doctor, who never saw him, to declare him insane. He was captured and taken to a mansion on Lake Starnburg where he was found floating dead with his doctor. In 1996 Greg King authored "The Mad King."
  
• 1886  Jul 4, 1st scheduled transcontinental passenger train reached Pt Moody, BC.
  
• 1886  Jul 23, New York saloonkeeper Steve Brodie claimed to have made a daredevil plunge from the Brooklyn Bridge into the East River.
  
• 1886  Jul 26, William Gladstone was replaced by Lord Salisbury as prime minister of England.
  
• 1886  Jul 31, Franz Liszt, composer, died in Bayreuth. His work included the symphonic poem "Les Preludes" and the "Faust Symphony." Cosima-von-Bulow was a illegitimate daughter of Liszt and married to Richard Wagner.
  
• 1886  Aug 31, An earthquake rocked Charleston, S.C., killing up to 110 people.
  
• 1886  Sep 4, Elusive Apache leader Geronimo surrendered to General Nelson A. Miles at Skeleton Canyon, Ariz.
  
• 1886  Sep 9, The Berne International Copyright Convention took place.
  
• 1886  Oct 10, The tuxedo dinner jacket made its American debut at the autumn ball in Tuxedo Park, N.Y.
  
• 1886  Oct 28, The Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island, formerly Bedloe's Island, in New York Harbor, a gift from the people of France, was dedicated by President Cleveland. It was originally named Liberty Enlightening the World and was erected at the entrance of New York harbor as a symbol of freedom to welcome immigrants and others from around the world. It became a monument to republicanism and to the amity between the French and American nations. The 225-ton statue arrived in 214 packing cases in June 1885 and was assembled on an American-built pedestal, the money for which was largely raised by Joseph Pulitzer. Later the 14 line, 1883 poem "New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus was placed at the base.
  
• 1886  Nov 18, The 21st president of the United States, Chester A. Arthur, died in New York at age 56.
  
• 1886  Dec 8, The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was founded at a convention of union leaders in Columbus, Ohio, by some 25 labor groups representing about 150,000 members. The first president of the American Federation of Labor was Samuel Gompers, who had reorganized the Cigarmakers Union and participated in the founding of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in 1881.
  
• 1886  Dec 17, At a Christmas party, Sam Belle shot his old enemy Frank West, but was fatally wounded himself.
  
• 1886  Dec 18, Ty [Tyrus Raymond] Cobb, American baseball player, first man to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, was born.
  
• 1886  The last impressionist exhibition was held in France.
  
• 1886  Jean-Leon Gerome painted "The First Kiss of the Sun."
  
• 1886  Henri Fantin-Latour painted "Vase With Autumn Asters."
  
• 1886  Auguste Rodin created his marble sculpture "The Kiss."
  
• 1886  Medardo Rosso sculpted his "The Golden Age."
  
• 1886  Baron von Richard Krafft-Ebing published a work on mental disease.
  
• 1886  Pierre Loti, French naval officer and author, wrote "An Iceland Fisherman."
  
• 1886  Robert Louis Stevenson wrote "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and "Kidnapped." His work also included "Silverado Squatters" based on his experiences in Calistoga, Ca. When he wrote "Treasure Island," he used Mount St. Helena and the Palisades for story scenes.
  
• 1886  The musical "The Black Crook" was named as the first American musical.
  
• 1886  In Galveston, Texas, the Millie Walters House was built. It was the last of the famous Postoffice St. bordellos.
  
• 1886  Assembly Hall, a gothic-style building built by the Latter-day Saint pioneers, was completed in Salt Lake City, Utah.
  
• 1886  The three Korbel brothers built a lumber mill in Guerneville, California. The mill prospered logging redwoods and specialized in fancy moldings used in many of the Victorian homes of San Francisco.
  
• 1886  In San Francisco the 13-room Haas-Lilienthal House was built at 2007 Franklin. Architect Peter R. Schmidt built the 24-room house of fir and redwood for Bertha and William Haas, a mercantile grocer, for $18,500.
  
• 1886  The Baptist General Convention, a state umbrella group for Baptist churches, was founded in Texas.
  
• 1886  Agua Caliente, home of warm mineral springs used by the Sonoma Valley Indians, was founded as the first resort in Sonoma, Ca.
• 1886  David McConnell of New York founded the California Perfume Company. He found that people were buying his books because of his free rose oil perfumes. US saleswoman P.F.E. Albee of Winchester, N.H., became the first Avon Lady. The company was named Avon in 1939.
  
• 1886  Nicholas Hilger began river boat tours on the Missouri River near Helena at the site of the limestone cliffs named the Gates of the Mountains by the Lewis and Clark expedition.
  
• 1886  Millionaires Pulitzer, McCormick, Rockefeller, Morgan and others formed the Jekyll Island Club as a vacation resort for themselves and their families on Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia.
  
• 1886  Ybor City was founded next to St. Petersburg by Spanish, Italian and Cuban cigar workers.
  
• 1886  A board game called "The Game of Baseball" was made with a lithographed game board by the McLoughlin Brothers.
  
• 1886  The beverages Moxie, Dr Pepper, Coca-Cola and Hires Root Beer all appeared in bottles.
  
• 1886  Maxwell House coffee was named.
  
• 1886  Pres. Grover Cleveland (49) married Frances Folsom (21), his ward and the daughter of his late law partner. He became the first and only president to be married in the White House. Cleveland's bride, Frances Folsom, was the 22-year-old daughter of Cleveland's late law partner and friend, Oscar Folsom. For years, the bachelor Cleveland acted as executor of Folsom's estate, but no one suspected his interest in Frances until he proposed marriage after her graduation from Wells College. The intimate wedding ceremony took place in the White House Blue Room with fewer than 40 people present. They had 2 sons and 3 daughters, one of whom, Ruth, inspired the Babe Ruth candy bar.
  
• 1886  George Hearst was elected US Senator for California.
  
• 1886  The Passenger Services Act (PSA) of this year required that cruise ships stopping in at US ports be built and registered in the US, be owned by US citizens and manned by American seamen-or that they stop at a foreign port before returning passengers to their departure point. It was designed to protect US ferry boats operating on the Great Lakes from Canadian competition.
  
• 1886  Josephine Garis Cochrane (d.1913), a housewife from Shelbyville, Ill., patented the first dishwashing machine. She named it the Garis-Cochran Dishwashing Machine in honor of her father and late husband.
  
• 1886  Alexander Winton, Cleveland bicycle manufacturer, made his first running experimental car. He went into the car business a year later.
  
• 1886  John Stith (Doc) Pemberton, pharmacist in Atlanta, Georgia, concocted a bath of a dark, sugary syrup meant to be mixed with carbonated water and sold at the city's soda fountains. This was the beginning of Coca Cola, which then contained enough cocaine to give the a drinker a buzz and more caffeine than the drink contains today. The story is told by Frederick Allen in his book "Secret Formula." The drink was named by Frank Robinson and he created its signature script logo.
  
• 1886  Duke's Cameo smokes was patented.
  
• 1886  In Honolulu, Hawaii, a fire destroyed the original Chinatown.
  
• 1886  Alexander Ostrovsky (b.1823), Russian social realist playwright, died.
• 1886  In Bulgaria the Cathedral of the Assumption was built in Varna.
  
• 1886  In Germany the firm of Robert Bosch GmbH was founded. It later became a world leader in automotive electronics.
  
• 1886  London's Soho district of this year was the setting for Joseph Conrad's 1907 novel "The Secret Agent."
  
• 1886  In Mexico the Tequila San Matias company in Guadalahara began tequila production.
  
• 1886  The discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand, South Africa, launched the city of Johannesburg. Labor was provided from Lesotho.
  
• 1886 Vincent Van Gogh made his Paris sojourn.