Year 1886 (MDCCCLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day Julian calendar).
Events of 1886
January–March
April–June
July–September
October–December
Undated
Births
January–June
- January 2 - Florence Lawrence, Canadian-born actress (d. 1938)
- January 7 - Amedeo Maiuri, Neapolitan archaeologist (d. 1963)
- January 11 - Chester Conklin, American actor (d. 1971)
- January 14 - Hugh Lofting, English-born author (d. 1947)
- January 18 - Clara Nordström, German writer and translator (d. 1962)
- January 25 - Wilhelm Furtwängler, German conductor (d. 1954)
- January 28 - Hidetsugu Yagi, Japanese electrical engineer (d. 1976)
- February 2 - Frank Lloyd, English-born film director, scriptwriter and producer (d. 1960)
- February 8 - Charles Ruggles, American actor (d. 1970)
- February 27 - Hugo Black, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (d. 1971)
- March 1 - Oskar Kokoschka, Austrian artist and poet (d. 1980)
- March 2 - Willis O'Brien, American stop motion animator (d. 1962)
- March 3 - Tore Ørjasæter, Norwegian poet (d. 1968)
- March 7 - Jacques Majorelle, French painter (d. 1962)
- March 8 - Edward Calvin Kendall, American chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1972)
- March 11 - Edward Rydz-Śmigły, Polish politician, Marshal of Poland (d. 1941)
- March 15 - Sergei Kirov, Soviet revolutionary (d. 1934)
- March 18
- March 24 - Edward Weston, American photographer (d. 1958)
- March 25 - Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople (d. 1972)
- March 27 - Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, German architect (d. 1969)
- April 14 - Ernst Robert Curtius, Alsatian philologist (d. 1956)
- April 15 - Tadeusz Kutrzeba, Polish general (d. 1947)
- April 25 - Marie Brémont, the last surviving person documented as born in 1886 (d. 2001)
- April 26 - Ma Rainey, American singer (d. 1939)
- May 2 - Gottfried Benn, German poet (d. 1956)
- May 3 - Marcel Dupré, French composer (d. 1971)
- May 10
- May 17 - King Alfonso XIII of Spain (d. 1941)
- May 18 - Ture Nerman, Swedish communist leader (d. 1969)
- May 20 - John Jacob Astor, 1st Baron Astor of Hever, British businessman (d. 1971)
- May 26 - Al Jolson, American entertainer (d. 1950)
- June 7 - Henri Coandă, Romanian aerodynamics pioneer (d. 1972)
- June 9 - Kosaku Yamada, Japanese composer and conductor (d. 1965)
- June 18 - George Mallory, English climber (d. 1924)
- June 24 - George Shiels, Northern Irish dramatist (d. 1949)
- June 25 - Henry "Hap" Arnold, American Five-Star General, U.S. Army, aviation pioneer (d. 1950)
- June 29 - Robert Schuman, German-French politician, a founding father of the European Union (d. 1963)
July–December
- July 3 - Raymond A. Spruance, American admiral and ambassador (d. 1969)
- July 12 - Jean Hersholt, Danish-born actor (d. 1956)
- July 23 - Walter H. Schottky, German physicist (d. 1976)
- July 24 - Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Japanese writer (d. 1965)
- July 25 - Bror von Blixen-Finecke, Danish big-game hunter (d. 1946)
- August 27
- September 1 - Othmar Schoeck, Swiss composer (d. 1957)
- September 4 - Albert Orsborn, the 6th General of The Salvation Army (d. 1967)
- September 5 - Nell Brinkley, American illustrator and comic artist (d. 1944)
- September 8 - Siegfried Sassoon, British poet (d. 1967)
- September 13 - Robert Robinson, British chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1975)
- September 14 - Jan Masaryk, Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia (d. 1948)
- September 16 - Jean Arp, Alsatian sculptor, painter, and poet (d. 1966)
- September 20 - Charles Williams, British author (d. 1945)
- September 24
- September 26 - Archibald Vivian Hill, English physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1977)
- September 28 - Alice Hollister, American silent film actress (d. 1973)
- October 3 - Henri Alban-Fournier, French author of Le Grand Meaulnes
- October 6 - Edwin Fischer, Swiss pianist and conductor (d. 1960)
- October 16 - David Ben-Gurion, first Prime Minister of Israel (d. 1973)
- October 17 - Andrej Bicenko, Russian fresco painter and muralist (d. 1985)
- November 1 - Hermann Broch, Austrian author (d. 1951)
- November 6 - André Marty, French Communist Party leader (d. 1956)
- November 9 - Ed Wynn, American actor (d. 1966)
- November 12 - Alfonso de Orleans y Borbón, Spanish prince and military aviator (d. 1975)
- November 15 - René Guénon, French-Egyptian author (d. 1951)
- November 20 - Karl von Frisch, Austrian zoologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1982)
- December 3 - Manne Siegbahn, Swedish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1978)
- December 5 - Rose Wilder Lane, American author (d. 1968)
- December 8 - Diego Rivera, Mexican painter (d. 1957)
- December 12 - Owen Moore, Irish actor (d. 1939)
- December 18 - Ty Cobb, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1961)
- December 25 - Kid Ory, American jazz musician (d. 1973)
- December 30 - Austin Osman Spare, English artist and magician
Deaths
January–June
- January 17 - Amilcare Ponchielli, Italian composer (b. 1834)
- January 18 - Baldassare Verazzi, Italian painter (b. 1819)
- January 25 - Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna, Chilean historian (b. 1831)
- January 26 - David Rice Atchison, American politician (b. 1807)
- February 18 - Dave Rudabaugh, American outlaw and gunfighter (b. 1854)
- February 24 - Hugh Stowell Brown, Manx preacher (b. 1823)
- March 17 - Pierre-Jules Hetzel, French editor and publisher (b. 1814)
- May 9 - Facundo Bacardí, Cuban rum manufacturer (b. 1814)
- May 15 - Emily Dickinson, American poet (b. 1830)
- May 17 - John Deere, American inventor (b. 1804)
- June 13 - King Ludwig II of Bavaria (b. 1845)
July–December
- July 1 - Otto Wilhelm Hermann von Abich, German geologist (b. 1806)
- July 31 - Franz Liszt, Hungarian pianist and composer (b. 1811)
- August 9 - Samuel Ferguson, Northern Irish poet and artist (b. 1810)
- August 11 - Lydia Koidula, Estonian poet (b. 1843)
- August 16 - Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Indian spiritual figure (b. 1836)
- August 30 - Ferris Jacobs, Jr., American politician (b. 1836)
- September 3 - William W. Snow, American politician (b. 1812)
- September 14 - Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard, American land speculator (b. 1802)
- October 8 - Austin F. Pike, American politician from New Hampshire (b. 1819)
- November 18 - Chester A. Arthur, 21st President of the United States (b. 1829)
- November 20 - William Bliss Baker, American painter (b. 1859)
- December 8 - William Fraser Tolmie, Scottish-Canadian scientist and politician (b. 1812)
- date unknown - Andrew Nicholl, Northern Irish painter (b. 1804)
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