1895

January–March

 * January 5 – Dreyfus affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his army rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island.
 * January 17 – Félix Faure is elected President of French Republic after the resignation of Jean Casimir-Perier.
 * January 21 – The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty is founded in England by Octavia Hill, Robert Hunter and Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley.
 * February 9 – Mintonette, later known as volleyball, is created by William G. Morgan at Holyoke, Massachusetts.
 * February 11 – The lowest ever UK temperature of -27.2 °C is recorded at Braemar in Aberdeenshire. This record is equalled in 1982 and again in 1995.
 * February 14 – Oscar Wilde's last play, the comedy The Importance of Being Earnest, is first shown at St James's Theatre in London.
 * February 20 – Venezuelan crisis of 1895: U.S. President Grover Cleveland signs into law a bill resulting from the proposition of House Resolution 252 by William Lindsay Scruggs and Congressman Leonidas Livingston to the third session of the 53rd Congress of the United States of America. The bill recommends Venezuela and Great Britain settle their dispute by arbitration.
 * February 25 – The first rebellions take place marking the start of the Cuban War of Independence.
 * March 1 – William Lyne Wilson is appointed United States Postmaster General.
 * March 3 – In Munich, bicyclists have to pass a test and display license plates.
 * March 4 – Japanese troops capture Liaoyang and land in Taiwan.
 * March 15 – Bridget Cleary is killed and her body burned in County Tipperary, Ireland, by her husband, Michael; he is subsequently convicted and imprisoned for manslaughter, his defence being a belief that he had killed a changeling left in his wife's place after she had been abducted by fairies.
 * March 18 – First worldwide gasoline bus started in Germany between Siegen and Netphen
 * March 30 – Rudolf Diesel patents the Diesel engine in Germany.

April–June

 * April 6 – Oscar Wilde is arrested in London for "gross indecency" after losing a criminal libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry.
 * April 14 – A major earthquake severely damages Ljubljana, the capital of Carniola.
 * April 16 – The town of Sturgeon Falls, Ontario, is incorporated.
 * April 17 – The Treaty of Shimonoseki is signed between China and Japan. This marks the end of the First Sino-Japanese War, and the defeated Qing Empire is forced to renounce its claims on Korea and to concede the southern portion of Fengtien province, Taiwan, and the Pescadores Islands to Japan. The huge indemnity exacted from China is used to establish the Yawata Iron and Steel Works in Japan.
 * April 22 – Gongche Shangshu movement: 603 candidates sign a 10,000-word petition against the Treaty of Shimonoseki.
 * May 1 – Dundela Football, Sports & Association Club formed in Belfast.
 * May 2 – Gongche Shangshu movement: Thousands of Beijing scholars and citizens protest against the Treaty of Shimonoseki.
 * May 24 – Anti-Japanese officials led by Tang Ching-sung in Taiwan declare independence from the Qing dynasty, forming the short-lived Republic of Formosa.
 * May 25 – R. v. Wilde: Oscar Wilde is convicted in London of "unlawfully committing acts of gross indecency with certain male persons" (under the Labouchere Amendment) and given a two years' sentence of hard labour, during which he will write De Profundis.
 * May 27 – In re Debs: The Supreme Court of the United States decides that the federal government has the right to regulate interstate commerce, legalizing the military suppression of the Pullman Strike.
 * June 11
 * Britain annexes Tongaland, between Zululand and Mozambique.
 * Paris–Bordeaux–Paris is sometimes called the first automobile race in history or the "first motor race".
 * June 20 – The Kiel Canal, connecting the North Sea to the Baltic across the base of the Jutland peninsula in Germany, is officially opened.
 * June 28
 * The union of Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador begins (ends in 1898).
 * The United States Court of Private Land Claims rules that James Reavis's claim to Barony of Arizona is "wholly fictitious and fraudulent".

July–September

 * Night of July 10–July 11 – The Doukhobors' pacifist protests culminate in the "Burning of the ass" in the South Caucasus.
 * July 15 – Archie MacLaren scores an English County Championship cricket record innings of 424 for Lancashire against Somerset at Taunton.
 * July 31 – The Basque Nationalist Party (Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea-Partido Nacionalista Vasco) is founded by Basque nationalist leader Sabino Arana.
 * August 7 – The Aljaž Tower, a symbol of the Slovenes, is erected on Mount Triglav.
 * August 10 – The first ever indoor promenade concert, origin of The Proms, is held at the Queen's Hall in London, opening a series conducted by Henry Wood.
 * August 19 – American frontier murderer and outlaw John Wesley Hardin is killed by an off-duty policeman in a saloon in El Paso, Texas.
 * August 29
 * The Northern Rugby Football Union (the modern-day Rugby Football League) is formed at a meeting of 21 rugby clubs at the George Hotel, Huddersfield in the north of England, leading to the creation of the sport of rugby league football.
 * Mat Salleh Rebellion in North Borneo is incited.
 * c. September – Foundation of Shelbourne F.C. in Dublin.
 * September 3 – The first professional American football game is played, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, between the Latrobe YMCA and the Jeannette Athletic Club (Latrobe wins 12–0).
 * September 7 – The first game of what will become known as rugby league football is played in England, starting the 1895–96 Northern Rugby Football Union season.
 * September 18
 * Booker T. Washington delivers the Atlanta compromise speech.
 * Tomoji Tanabe is born in Miyakonojō, Miyazaki, Japan. He will become the last living man born in 1895, dying on June 19, 2009, at the age of 113.
 * Daniel David Palmer performs the first chiropractic spinal adjustment, on Harvey Lillard whose complaint was partial deafness after an injury.

October–December

 * October
 * Rudyard Kipling publishes the story "Mowgli Leaves the Jungle Forever" in The Cosmopolitan illustrated magazine in the United States (price 10 cents), collected in The Second Jungle Book published in England in November.
 * The London School of Economics holds its first classes in London, England.
 * October 1 – French troops capture Antananarivo in Madagascar.
 * October 8 – The Eulmi Incident: Empress Myeongseong of Korea is killed at her private residence within Gyeongbokgung Palace by Japanese agents.
 * October 22 – Montparnasse derailment: A train runs through the exterior wall of Gare Montparnasse terminus in Paris.
 * October 23 – The city of Tainan, last stronghold of the Republic of Formosa, capitulates to the forces of the Empire of Japan, ending the short-lived republic and beginning the era of Taiwan under Japanese rule.
 * October 31 – A major earthquake occurs in the New Madrid Seismic Zone of the midwestern United States, the last to date.
 * November 5 – George B. Selden is granted the first U.S. patent for an automobile.
 * November 8 – Wilhelm Röntgen discovers a type of radiation later known as X-rays.
 * November 25
 * Oscar Hammerstein opens the Olympia Theatre, the first theatre to be built in New York City's Times Square district.
 * Chicago Times-Herald race: The first American automobile race in history is sponsored by the Chicago Times-Herald. Press coverage first arouses significant American interest in the automobile.
 * November 27 – At the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Alfred Nobel signs his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after his death.
 * December –
 * 3,000 Armenians are burned alive in Urfa by Ottoman troops.
 * Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War begins.
 * December 7 – A corps of 2,350 Italian troops, mostly Askari, are crushed by 30,000 Abyssian troops at Amba Alagi.
 * December 11 – Svante Arrhenius becomes the first scientist to deliver quantified data about the sensitivity of global climate to atmospheric carbon dioxide (the "Greenhouse effect") as he presents his paper "On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air Upon The Temperature of the Ground" to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
 * December 15 – The railways of the Cape of Good Hope, Colony of Natal, the Orange Free State, the South African Republic and southern Mozambique are all linked at Union Junction near Alberton.
 * December 24 – Christmas Eve:
 * Kingstown lifeboat disaster: 15 crew are lost when their life-boat capsizes while trying to rescue the crew of the SS Palme off Kingstown (modern-day Dún Laoghaire) near Dublin, Ireland.
 * George Washington Vanderbilt II officially opens his Biltmore Estate, inviting his family and guests to celebrate his new home in Asheville, North Carolina.
 * December 28 – Auguste and Louis Lumière display their first moving picture film in Paris.

Date unknown

 * The gold reserve of the U.S. Treasury is saved when J. P. Morgan and the Rothschilds loan $65 million worth of gold to the United States government.
 * The world's first portable handheld electric drill is developed by brothers Wilhelm and Carl Fein in Germany.
 * Konstantin Tsiolkovsky proposes a space elevator.
 * Grace Chisholm Young becomes the first woman awarded a doctorate at a German university.
 * W. E. B. Du Bois becomes the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University.
 * The Swarovski Company is founded by Armand Kosman, Franz Weis and Daniel Swarovski in the Austrian Tyrol for the production of crystal glass.
 * The name 'HP Sauce' is first registered in the United Kingdom for a brown sauce.
 * The Duck Reach Power Station opens in Tasmania, first publicly owned hydroelectric plant in the Southern Hemisphere.
 * The first Boxer dog show is held at Munich, Germany.
 * A huge crowd at the first Welsh Grand National at Ely Racecourse, Cardiff, breaks down barriers and almost overwhelms police trying to keep out gatecrashers.
 * German trade unions have c. 270,000 members.

January–March

 * January 1
 * Bert Acosta, American aviator (d. 1954)
 * J. Edgar Hoover, American Federal Bureau of Investigation director (d. 1972)
 * January 4 – Leroy Grumman, American aeronautical engineer, test pilot and industrialist (d. 1982)
 * January 9 – Lucian Truscott, American general (d. 1965)
 * January 15
 * Leo Aryeh Mayer, Israeli professor and scholar of Islamic art (d. 1959)
 * Artturi Ilmari Virtanen, Finnish chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)
 * January 19
 * Isamu Chō, Japanese general (d. 1945)
 * Arthur Coningham, British air force air marshal (d. 1948)
 * January 21
 * Cristóbal Balenciaga, Spanish-French couturier (d. 1972)
 * Davíð Stefánsson, Icelandic poet (d. 1964)
 * January 23 – Raymond Griffith, American actor (d. 1957)
 * January 24 – Eugen Roth, German writer (d. 1976)
 * January 30 – Wilhelm Gustloff, German-born Swiss Nazi party leader (d. 1936)
 * February 2 – George Halas, American football player, coach, and co-founder of the National Football League (d. 1983)
 * February 6 – Babe Ruth, American baseball player (d. 1948)
 * February 10 – John Black, English chairman of Standard-Triumph (d. 1965)
 * February 14 – Max Horkheimer, German philosopher and sociologist (d. 1973)
 * February 15 – Earl Thomson, Canadian athlete (d. 1971)
 * February 18 (O.S. 6 February) – Semyon Timoshenko, Soviet general, Marshal of the Soviet Union (d. 1970)
 * February 19
 * Louis Calhern, American actor (d. 1956)
 * Diego Mazquiarán, Spanish matador (d. 1940)
 * February 21 – Henrik Dam, Danish biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1976)
 * February 25 – Lew Andreas, American basketball coach (d. 1984)
 * February 27 – Edward Brophy, American character actor (d. 1960)
 * February 28
 * Louise Lovely, Australian actress (d. 1980)
 * Marcel Pagnol, French novelist and playwright (d. 1974)
 * March 3
 * Ragnar Frisch, Norwegian economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)
 * Matthew Ridgway, Commander of NATO, United States Army Chief of Staff (d. 1993)
 * March 4
 * Shemp Howard, American actor and comedian (The Three Stooges) (d. 1955)
 * Milt Gross, American comic book illustrator and animator (d. 1953)
 * March 12 – William C. Lee, U.S. general (d. 1948)
 * March 20
 * Robert Benoist, French race car driver and war hero (d. 1944)
 * Johnny Morrison, professional baseball player (d. 1966)
 * March 23 – Encarnacion Alzona, Filipino historian (d. 2001)
 * March 27 – Ruth Snyder, American murderer (d. 1928)
 * March 28 – Spencer W. Kimball, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 1985)
 * March 29
 * Ernst Jünger, German author (d. 1998)
 * George Vasey, Australian general (d. 1945)

April–June

 * April 1 – Alberta Hunter, American singer (d. 1984)
 * April 3 – Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Italian composer (d. 1968)
 * April 9 – Mance Lipscomb, American singer (d. 1976)
 * April 13 – Olga Rudge, American violinist (d. 1996)
 * April 15
 * Corrado Alvaro, Italian writer and journalist (d. 1968)
 * Clark McConachy, New Zealand snooker and billiards player (d. 1980)
 * April 20 – Emile Christian, American musician (d. 1973)
 * April 26 – Hans Kopfermann, German physicist (d. 1963)
 * April 29 – Malcolm Sargent, English conductor (d. 1967)
 * May 6 – Rudolph Valentino, Italian actor (d. 1926)
 * May 8 – Fulton J. Sheen, American Catholic archbishop and television personality (d. 1979)
 * May 9 – Richard Barthelmess, American actor (d. 1963)
 * May 10 – Kama Chinen, Japanese woman supercentenarian and oldest person in the world (d. 2010)
 * May 11 – Jiddu Krishnamurti, Indian writer (d. 1986)
 * May 17
 * Mary Josephine Ray, Canadian woman supercentenarian and second oldest person in the world (d. 2010)
 * Saul Adler FRS, Russian-born British-Israeli expert on parasitology (d. 1966)
 * May 21 – Lázaro Cárdenas, 44th President of Mexico (d. 1970)
 * May 25 – Dorothea Lange, American documentary photographer and photojournalist (d. 1965)
 * June 4 – Dino Grandi, Italian Fascist politician (d. 1988)
 * June 10 – Hattie McDaniel, actress, first African-American woman to win an Academy Award (in 1939) (d. 1952)
 * June 12 – Wilfrid Kent Hughes, Australian Olympian and politician (d. 1970)
 * June 17 – Ruben Rausing, Swedish entrepreneur and founder of Tetra Pak (d. 1983)
 * June 24 – Jack Dempsey, American heavyweight boxer (d. 1983)

July–September

 * July 1 – Lucy Somerville Howorth, American lawyer, feminist and politician (d. 1997)
 * July 2 – Pavel Osipovich Sukhoi, Russian aircraft engineer (d. 1975)
 * July 8 – Igor Tamm, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1971)
 * July 9 – Gunnar Aaby, Danish soccer player (d. 1966)
 * July 10 – Carl Orff, German composer (d. 1982)
 * July 12
 * Kirsten Flagstad, Norwegian soprano (d. 1982)
 * Buckminster Fuller, American architect (d. 1983)
 * July 14 – F. R. Leavis, English literary critic (d. 1978)
 * July 19 – Xu Beihong, Chinese painter (d. 1953)
 * July 22 – León de Greiff, Colombian poet (d. 1976)
 * July 24 – Robert Graves, English writer (d. 1985)
 * July 25
 * Yvonne Printemps, French singer and actress (d. 1977)
 * Ingeborg Spangsfeldt, Danish actress (d. 1968)
 * July 26 – Gracie Allen, American actress and comedian (d. 1964)
 * August 3 – Neva Morris, American supercentenarian (d. 2010)
 * August 6 – Ernesto Lecuona, Cuban pianist and composer (d. 1963)
 * August 8 – Jean Navarre, French World War I fighter ace (d. 1919)
 * August 10 – Harry Richman, American entertainer (d. 1972)
 * August 12 – Lynde D. McCormick, American admiral (d. 1956)
 * August 16
 * Liane Haid, Austrian actress (d. 2000)
 * Lucien Littlefield, American actor (d. 1960)
 * August 18 – Sibyl Morrison, Australian barrister (d. 1961)
 * August 19 – François Demol, Belgian footballer (d. 1966)
 * August 24
 * Guido Masiero, Italian World War I flying ace and aviation pioneer (d. 1942)
 * Tuanku Abdul Rahman, King of Malaysia (d. 1960)
 * September 1
 * Chembai, Indian Carnatic musician (d. 1974)
 * Engelbert Zaschka, German helicopter pioneer (d. 1955)
 * September 7
 * Sir Brian Horrocks, British general (d. 1985)
 * Jacques Vaché, French writer, associated with Surrealism (d. 1919)
 * September 11 – Vinoba Bhave, Indian religious leader (d. 1982)
 * September 13 – Ruth McDevitt, American actress (d. 1976)
 * September 18
 * John Diefenbaker, 13th Prime Minister of Canada (d. 1979)
 * Tomoji Tanabe, Japanese supercentenarian (d. 2009)
 * September 21 – Juan de la Cierva, Spanish civil engineer, aviator, aeronautical engineer and inventor of the autogyro (d. 1936)
 * September 22 – Paul Muni, American actor (d. 1967)
 * September 24 – André Frédéric Cournand, French-born physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1988)
 * September 29 – Joseph Banks Rhine, American parapsychologist (d. 1980)
 * September 30 – Aleksandr Vasilevsky, Soviet general, Marshal of the Soviet Union (d. 1977)

October–December

 * October 3
 * Giovanni Comisso, Italian writer (d. 1969)
 * Sergei Aleksandrovich Yesenin, Russian lyric poet (d. 1925)
 * October 4 – Buster Keaton, American actor and film director (d. 1966)
 * October 6 – Caroline Gordon, American writer and critic (d. 1981)
 * October 8
 * Juan Domingo Perón, President of Argentina (d. 1974)
 * King Zog of Albania (d. 1961)
 * October 9 – Ivan Yumashev, Soviet admiral (d. 1972)
 * October 10 – Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen, German field marshal (d. 1945)
 * October 13
 * Cemal Gürsel, Turkish army officer and President (d. 1966)
 * Mike Gazella, American baseball player (d. 1978)
 * October 14 – Silas Simmons, Pre-Negro League Baseball player, longest-lived professional baseball player (d. 2006)
 * October 19 – Lewis Mumford, American historian (d. 1990)
 * October 21 – Edna Purviance, American actress (d. 1958)
 * October 22 – Rolf Nevanlinna, Finnish mathematician (d. 1980)
 * October 24 – Charles Walter Allfrey, British general (d. 1964)
 * October 25 – Levi Eshkol, Israeli Prime Minister (d. 1969)
 * October 30
 * Gerhard Domagk, German bacteriologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (declined) (d. 1964)
 * Dickinson W. Richards, American physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1973)
 * October 31 – Basil Liddell Hart, British military historian (d. 1970)
 * November 4 – Thomas G. W. Settle, American record-setting balloonist and admiral (d. 1980)
 * November 5 – Walter Gieseking, German pianist (d. 1956)
 * November 10
 * Franz Bachelin, German art director (d. 1980)
 * John Knudsen Northrop, American airplane manufacturer (d. 1981)
 * November 14
 * Walter Freeman, American physician (d. 1972)
 * Maggie Mae Renfro, American supercentenarian (d. 2010)
 * November 15
 * Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia (d. 1918)
 * Antoni Słonimski, Polish poet and writer (d. 1976)
 * November 16 – Paul Hindemith, German composer (d. 1963)
 * November 17 – Mikhail Bakhtin, Russian philosopher and literary scholar (d. 1975)
 * November 25
 * Wilhelm Kempff, German pianist (d. 1991)
 * Helen Hooven Santmyer, American writer (d. 1986)
 * November 29 – Busby Berkeley, American film director and choreographer (d. 1976)
 * December 2 – Harriet Cohen, English pianist (d. 1967)
 * December 9 – Dolores Ibárruri, Spanish republican leader (d. 1989)
 * December 11 – Kiyoto Kagawa, Japanese admiral (d. 1943)
 * December 14
 * Paul Éluard, French poet (d. 1952)
 * King George VI of the United Kingdom (d. 1952)
 * December 24 – Marguerite Williams, African-American geologist (d.1991?)
 * December 28 – Carol Ryrie Brink, American author (d. 1981)

January–June

 * January 9 – Aaron Lufkin Dennison, American watchmaker (b. 1812)
 * January 10 – Benjamin Godard, French composer (b. 1849)
 * January 24 – Lord Randolph Churchill, British statesman (b. 1849)
 * February 9 – Ōdera Yasuzumi, Japanese general (killed in action) (b. 1846)
 * February 10 – Liu Buchan, Chinese admiral (suicide) (b. 1852)
 * February 12 – Ding Ruchang, Chinese army officer and admiral (killed in action) (b. 1836)
 * February 18 – Archduke Albrecht, Duke of Teschen, Austrian general (b. 1817)
 * February 20 – Frederick Douglass, American ex-slave and author (b. 1818)
 * February 25 – Henry Bruce, 1st Baron Aberdare, politician (b. 1815)
 * February 26 – Salvador de Itúrbide y de Marzán, Prince of Mexico (b. 1849)
 * March 2 – Berthe Morisot, French painter (b. 1841)
 * March 10 – Charles Frederick Worth, English-born couturier (b. 1826)
 * April 4 – Nikolai Baranov, Russian politician (b. 1843)
 * March 13 – Louise Otto-Peters, German women's rights movement activist (d. 1819)
 * May 19 – José Martí, Cuban independence leader (b. 1853)
 * May 21 – Franz von Suppé, Austrian composer (b. 1819)
 * May 23 – Franz Ernst Neumann, German mineralogist, physicist and mathematician (b. 1798)
 * May 26 – Ahmed Cevdet Pasha, Ottoman statesman (b. 1822)
 * May 28 – Walter Q. Gresham, American politician (b. 1832)
 * June 6 – Gustaf Nordenskiöld, Swedish explorer (b. 1868)
 * June 27 – Sophie Adlersparre, Swedish feminist (b. 1823)
 * June 29
 * Thomas Henry Huxley, English evolutionary biologist (b. 1825)
 * Green Clay Smith, American politician (b. 1826)
 * Floriano Vieira Peixoto, 2nd president of Brazil (b. 1839)
 * Émile Munier, French artist (b. 1840)

July–December

 * July 28 – Edward Beecher, American theologian (b. 1803)
 * August 4 – Louis-Antoine Dessaulles, Quebec journalist and politician (b. 1818)
 * August 5 – Friedrich Engels, German communist philosopher (b. 1820)
 * August 22 – Luzon B. Morris, American politician (b. 1827)
 * September 26 – Ephraim Wales Bull, American horticulturalist, creator of Concord grape (b. 1806)
 * September 28 – Louis Pasteur, French microbiologist and chemist (b. 1822)
 * October 8 – Empress Myeongseong (Queen Min), last Korean empress (b. 1851), assassinated
 * October 25 – Charles Hallé, German-born pianist and conductor (b. 1819)
 * November 5 – Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa of Japan (b. 1847)
 * November 23 – Mauritz de Haas, Dutch-American marine painter (b. 1832)
 * November 27 – Alexandre Dumas, fils, French author and playwright (b. 1824)
 * December 13 – Ányos Jedlik, Hungarian physicist, inventor of the dynamo (b. 1800)
 * December 27 – Eivind Astrup, Norwegian Arctic explorer (b. 1871)