The Siege of Khartoum begins. It lasts until January 26, 1885.

The Battle of Khartoum, Siege of Khartoum or Fall of Khartoum was the conquest of Egyptian-held Khartoum by the Mahdist forces led by Muhammad Ahmad of Sudan. Egypt had held the city for some time, but the siege the Mahdists engineered and carried out from 13 March 1884 to 26 January 1885 was enough to wrest control away from the Egyptian administration.

After a ten-month siege, when the Mahdists finally broke into the city, they killed the entire garrison of Egyptian soldiers, along with 4,000 mostly male Sudanese civilians, and enslaved many women and children. According to some accounts, they killed and beheaded British General Charles George Gordon, delivering his head to the Mahdi.