Charles Fort: A Fortean Chronology, 1886.

The year 1886 (MDCCCLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar.

January

• January 1: Burma is presented to Queen Victoria as a birthday gift, after the country is annexed into British India in November 1885.
• January 16: A resolution is passed in the German Parliament, to condemn the Prussian deportations, the politically motivated mass expulsion of ethnic Poles and Jews from Prussia, initiated by Otto von Bismarck.
• January 18: Modern field hockey is born with the formation of The Hockey Association in England.
• January 29: Karl Benz patents the first successful gasoline-driven automobile, the Benz Patent Motorwagen (built in 1885).

February

• February 14: The first train load of oranges leaves Los Angeles via the transcontinental railroad.

March

• Anti-Chinese sentiments result in riots in Seattle, USA.
• March 3: The Treaty of Bucharest ends the Serbo-Bulgarian War in the Balkans.
• March 16: A law establishing the Kiel Canal is adopted.
• March 17: Carrollton Massacre: 20 African Americans are killed in Mississippi.
• March 19: A darkness, like midnight, falls upon the city of Oshkosh, Wis. at 3:00pm. (Books232)
• March 29: Wilhelm Steinitz becomes first recognized World Chess Champion.

April

• April 4: William Ewart Gladstone introduces the First Irish Home Rule Bill in the British Parliament; it is defeated on June 8.
• April 17: Hailstones, some red, some blue and some whitish fall upon Venezuela. (Books40) 
• April 25: Easter occurs on the latest possible date (the next time in 1943).

May

• May 1: A general strike begins in the United States, which escalates into the Haymarket Riot and eventually wins the eight-hour workday in the U.S.
• May 4: Emil Berliner starts work that leads to the invention of the gramophone.
• May 8: Pharmacist Dr. John Stith Pemberton invents a carbonated beverage that would be named Coca-Cola.
• May 11: Two lights seen upon the moon. (Books443) 
• May 17: The Football Association approves N. L. Jackson's proposal that each player be awarded a cap for each international match in which he plays.
• May 22: Two witnesses. In  the garden of the College Barssur-Aube some baskets, some ashes and a window frame rise into the air, there they remain a while, before tumbling to the ground. (Books463) 
• May 29: Pharmacist John Pemberton begins to advertise Coca-Cola (ad in the Atlanta Journal).

June

• 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 10: The Mount Tarawera volcano erupts in New Zealand, resulting in the deaths of over 150 people and the destruction of the famous Pink and White Terraces.
• June 13: A fire devastates much of Vancouver, British Columbia.