Karl Benz receives a patent for the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, widely regarded as the first automobile powered by an internal combustion engine.
Louis Pasteur administers his rabies vaccine to Joseph Meister, a boy bitten by a rabid dog, who survives.
France creates the Indochinese Union of Cochinchina, Annam, Tonkin and Cambodia; Laos is added in 1893.
The treaty places Tonkin and Annam under French protectorate.
European powers met in Berlin to set rules for colonial claims in Africa, accelerating the "Scramble for Africa" without any African representation.
Karl Marx dies in London, where he had lived in exile and written Das Kapital.
Adolf Hitler, later dictator of Nazi Germany, is born in Braunau am Inn, Austria.