1885

The Year Marty McFly and Doc Brown time traveled to the old west
in their Time Traveling Delorean.

Also, two stepbrothers accidentally invent a time machine and are transported from the present day to 1885,
where they come into conflict with the local mayor and are Lost in the West.

Picture This

W. L. Wyllie Storm and Sunshine: A Battle with the Elements

News of the World

A lot of interesting events and firsts happen this year.
But to limit it, I narrowed it down…

January 20 – American inventor LaMarcus Adna Thompson patents a roller coaster.
Feb. 21: Washington Monument dedicated.
March 3 – A subsidiary of the American Bell Telephone Company, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T), is incorporated in New York.
June 17 – The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.
July 6 – Louis Pasteur and Émile Roux successfully test their rabies vaccine. The patient is Joseph Meister, a boy who was bitten by a rabid dog.
July 14 – Sarah E. Goode is the first African-American woman to apply for and receive a patent, for the invention of the hideaway bed.
July 15 – The Reservation at Niagara Falls opens, enabling access to all for free.
December 1 – The U.S. Patent Office acknowledges this date as the day Dr Pepper is served for the first time; the exact date of Dr. Pepper’s invention is unknown.
Karl Benz produces the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, regarded as the first automobile (patented and publicly launched the following year).
John Kemp Starley demonstrates the Rover safety bicycle, regarded as the first practical modern bicycle.
The Servant Girl Annihilator, also known as the Austin Axe Murderer and the Midnight Assassin, was an unidentified American serial killer who preyed upon the city of Austin, Texas, between 1884 and 1885.
Captain John Walker and German-American Katherine Walker ( November 25, 1848 – February 5, 1931) became lighthouse keepers of the Robbins Reef Light in New York Harbor in 1885. John died a year later in 1886 and his last words to his wife were “Mind the light, Kate. She kept the light for more than 30 years after the death of her husband.

Arrivals

This was the year that saw the birth of several people, some who would live to the year Star Wars first came out in cinemas across the globe including …

Alice Paul, (January 11, 1885 – July 9, 1977) She is one of the foremost leaders and strategists of the campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits sex discrimination in the right to vote.
Umberto Nobile, (January 21 1885 – 30 July 1978) Nobile was a developer and promoter of semi-rigid airships in the years between the two World Wars. He is primarily remembered for designing and piloting the airship Norge, which may have been the first aircraft to reach the North Pole, and which was indisputably the first to fly across the polar ice cap from Europe to America. Nobile also designed and flew the Italia, a second polar airship; this second expedition ended in a deadly crash and provoked an international rescue effort.
John Henry Towers, (January 30, 1885 – April 30, 1955) was a highly decorated United States Navy four-star admiral and pioneer naval aviator.He was one of few and the only early Naval Aviation pioneers to survive the hazards of early flight to remain with naval aviation throughout his career.
Clementine Churchill, . April 1, 1885 –December 12, 1977) was the wife of English prime minister Winston Churchill.
George Francis “Gabby” Hayes (May 7, 1885 – February 9, 1969) Gabby is best known for his numerous appearances in B-Western film series as the bewhiskered, cantankerous, but ever-loyal and brave comic sidekick of the cowboy stars Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers.
Gianni Vella (9 May 1885 – 3 September 1977) was a Maltese artist. After studying in Rome, he produced many religious works which can be found in many churches in the Maltese Islands, but he also produced some secular works including landscape paintings, cartoons and a stamp design.
John Edensor Littlewood (June 9, 1885 –September 6, 1977) was a British mathematician who worked on topics relating to analysis, number theory, and differential equations,
Theda Bara (July 29, 1885 – April 7, 1955), One of the silent era cinema’s early sex symbols nicknamed The Vamp.

Departures

Victor Hugo, (February 26,1802 – 22 May 22, 1885)
author of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and Les Misérables (1862).

Saint Thérèse Couderc (1805–1885)

Jumbo the Circus Elephant (about December 25, 1860 – September 15, 1885)
a performer in P. T. Barnum‘s circus. He died when he was hit by a train.

Hey A Movie

American inventors George Eastman and Hannibal Goodwin each invent a sensitized celluloid base roll photographic film to replace the glass plates then in use.

On the Airwaves

Inventor Nathan Stubblefield, (November 22, 1860 – March 28, 1928) was an American inventor best known for his wireless telephone work. Between 1885 and 1892, he worked on an induction transmission system in regards to radio..

Publications Hot of the Press

Mark Twain’s ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn‘ is published in the U.S.having been published in England the year before.
H. Rider Haggard’s “King Solomon’s Mines” featuring a Indiana Jones type character.
The Griffin and the Minor Canon by Frank R. Stockton .It is found in the anthology Tales Before Tolkien: The Roots of Modern Fantasy (2003) which also contain stories by popular fantasy writers such as, George McDonald, The Princess and the Goblin (1871) L. Frank Baum The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) E. Nesbit Five Children and It (1902) and H. Rider Haggard.

May 2 Good Housekeeping magazine goes on sale for the first time in the United States.

Good Sports

National League v. American Association – Chicago NL ties St Louis A’s, 3 games to 3 with one tie.
The Cuban Giants, composed mainly of African-American players from Philadelphia, is the first black professional baseball team on a reasonably permanent basis. It will sometimes join a league and use a regular home park but more often tour independently.

Sanctifying Time

The Sound of Music and Other Cultural Milestones

How Great Thou Art

“How Great Thou Art” is a Christian hymn based on an original Swedish hymn entitled “O Store Gud” written in 1885 by Carl Boberg (1859–1940). The English version of the hymn and its title are a loose translation by the English missionary Stuart K. Hine from 1949. The hymn was popularised by George Beverly Shea and Cliff Barrows during Billy Graham’s crusades. It was voted the British public’s favourite hymn by BBC‘s Songs of Praise. “How Great Thou Art” was ranked second (after “Amazing Grace“) on a list of the favourite hymns of all time in a survey by Christianity Today magazine in 2001 and in a nationwide poll by Songs Of Praise in 2019.

“Prayer for Ukraine“

This is a patriotic Ukrainian hymn published in 1885, which became a spiritual anthem of Ukraine. The text was written by Oleksandr Konysky, and the music was composed by Mykola Lysenko, first with a children’s choir in mind. The song became the regular closing hymn in services of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and other churches. It gained national significance when it was performed by mass choirs during the Ukrainian War of Independence in 1917–1920. The hymn was intended to be an official spiritual anthem of Ukraine. It has closed sessions of oblast councils, and has been performed at major national functions.

– Gilbert and Sullivan‘s comic opera The Mikado opens, at the Savoy Theatre in London on March 14. 1985

1931

Back to the Future: The Game

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