1890

January–March

 * January 1
 * The Kingdom of Italy establishes Eritrea as its colony in the Horn of Africa.
 * In Michigan, the wooden steamer Mackinaw burns in a fire on the Black River.
 * January 2
 * The steamship Persia is wrecked off Corsica; 130 lives are lost.
 * Alice Sanger becomes the first female staffer in the White House.
 * January 11 – 1890 British Ultimatum: the United Kingdom demands Portugal withdraw its forces from the land between the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique and Angola (most of present-day Zimbabwe and Zambia)
 * January 15 – The Sleeping Beauty with music by Tchaikovsky is premiered at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, Russia.
 * January 25
 * The United Mine Workers of America is founded.
 * Nellie Bly completes her round-the-world journey in 72 days.
 * February 9 – The Weather Bureau is established within the United States Department of Agriculture.
 * February 17 – The British steamship Duburg is wrecked in the South China Sea: 400 lives are lost.
 * February 24 – Chicago is selected to host the Columbian Exposition
 * March 1
 * The British steamship Quetia founders in the Torres Straits: 124 lives are lost.
 * Léon Bourgeois succeeds Jean Antoine Ernest Constans as French Minister of the Interior.
 * March 3 – The first American football game in Ohio State University history is played in Delaware, Ohio, against Ohio Wesleyan, with the Ohio State Buckeyes winning 20–14.
 * March 4 – The Forth Bridge across the Firth of Forth in Scotland is opened to rail traffic.
 * March 8 – North Dakota State University is founded in Fargo.
 * March 17 – The first railway in Transvaal, the Randtram, opens between Boksburg and Braamfontein in Johannesburg.
 * March 20 – Kaiser Wilhelm II dismisses Otto von Bismarck.
 * March 27 – The March 1890 middle Mississippi Valley tornado outbreak, 24 significant tornadoes are spawned by one system killing least 146 people.
 * March 28 – Washington State University is founded in Pullman.

April–June

 * April 14 – First International Conference of American States in Washington DC: Commercial Bureau of the American Republics founded.
 * May 1 – A coordinated series of mass rallies and one-day strikes held throughout many cities and mining towns in Europe and North America to demand an eight-hour workday.
 * May 2 – Oklahoma Territory becomes effective.
 * May 12 – The first ever official English County Championship cricket match begins in Bristol; Yorkshire beats Gloucestershire by 8 wickets.
 * May 20 – Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh moves to Auvers-sur-Oise on the edge of Paris in the care of Dr Paul Gachet where he will produce around seventy paintings in as many days.
 * May 31 – The 5-story skylight Arcade opens in Cleveland, Ohio.
 * June 1 – The United States Census Bureau begins using Herman Hollerith's tabulating machine to tabulate census returns using punched card input, a landmark in the history of computing hardware. Hollerith's company eventually becomes IBM.
 * June 12 – In Michigan, the wooden steamer Ryan is lost near Thunder Bay Island.
 * June 20 – The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde published by Philadelphia-based Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (dated July).
 * June 27 – Canadian-born boxer George Dixon defeats the British bantamweight champion in London, giving him claim to be the first black world champion in any sport.

July–September

 * July – Japanese general election of 1890: The first general election for the House of Representatives of Japan, about 5% of the adult male population elect a lower house of the Diet of Japan in accordance with the new Meiji Constitution of 1889.
 * July 1 – Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty is signed by Great Britain and Germany.
 * July 2 – The Sherman Antitrust Act and Sherman Silver Purchase Act become United States law.
 * July 3 – Idaho is admitted as the 43rd U.S. state.
 * July 10 – Wyoming is admitted as the 44th U.S. state.
 * July 13 – In Minnesota, storms result in the Sea Wing disaster on Lake Pepin, killing 98.
 * July 14 – First recorded use of lime-green to describe a color.
 * July 26 – In Buenos Aires, the Revolution of the Park takes place, forcing President Juárez Celman's resignation.
 * July 27 – Death of Vincent van Gogh: van Gogh apparently shoots himself, dying two days later.
 * August 6 – At Auburn Prison in New York, William Kemmler becomes the first person to be executed in the electric chair.
 * August 20 – Treaty of London: Portugal and the United Kingdom define the borders of the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique and Angola.
 * August Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Alexander III meet at Narva.
 * September 6 Dublin football club Bohemian F.C. were founded in the Gate Lodge, Phoenix Park.
 * September 19 – The Turkish frigate OTTOMAN FRIGATE Ertuğrul founders off Japan; 540 lives are lost.

October–December

 * October 9 – The first brief flight of Clément Ader's steam-powered fixed-wing aircraft Ader Éole takes place in Satory, France. It flies uncontrolled approximately 50 m at a height of 20 cm, the first take-off of a powered airplane solely under its own power.
 * October 11 – In Washington, D.C., the Daughters of the American Revolution is founded.
 * October 12 – In Uddevalla, the Uddevalla Suffrage Association is founded. Formal founding event on November 2 a month later.
 * October 13
 * In Michigan, the schooner J.F. Warner is lost at Thunder Bay.
 * The Delta Chi fraternity is founded by 11 law students at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
 * November 4 – The first deep level London Underground (Tube) Railway, the City and South London Railway, opens officially.
 * November 21 – Edward King, Anglican bishop of Lincoln, is convicted of using ritualistic practices.
 * November 23 – King William III of the Netherlands dies without a male heir, and his daughter Princess Wilhelmina becomes Queen, causing the end of the personal union of thrones with Luxembourg (which requires a male heir) so that Adolphe, Duke of Nassau becomes Grand Duke of Luxembourg.
 * November 29
 * The Meiji Constitution goes into effect in Japan and its first Diet convenes.
 * At West Point, New York, the United States Navy defeats the United States Army 24–0 in the first Army–Navy Game of college football.
 * November – Scotland Yard, headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service, moves to a building on London's Victoria Embankment, as New Scotland Yard.
 * December 15 – Hunkpapa Lakota leader Sitting Bull is killed by police on Standing Rock Indian Reservation.
 * December 27 – The British steamship Shanghai burns in the East China Sea off the coast of Anhui Province; 101 lives are lost.
 * December 29 – Wounded Knee Massacre: At Wounded Knee, South Dakota, a Native American camp, the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment tries to disperse the non-violent "Ghost-Dance" which was promised to usher in a new era of power and freedom to Native Americans but is feared as a potential rallying tool for violent rebellion by some in the U.S. government. Shooting begins, and 153 Lakota Sioux and 25 troops are killed; about 150 flee the scene. This is the last tribe to be defeated and confined to a reservation as well as the beginning of the decline of both the American Indian Wars and the American frontier.

Date unknown

 * The folding carton box is invented by Robert Gair, a Brooklyn printer who developed production of paper-board boxes in 1879.
 * The United States city of Boise, Idaho, drills the first geothermal well.
 * Brown trout are introduced into the upper Firehole River in Yellowstone National Park.
 * High School Cadets is written by John Philip Sousa.
 * William II of Prussia opposes Bismarck's attempt to renew the law outlawing the Social Democratic Party.
 * Blackwall Buildings, Whitechapel, noted philanthropic housing, is built in the East End of London.
 * English archaeologist Flinders Petrie excavates at Tell el-Hesi, Palestine (mistakenly identified as Tel Lachish), the first scientific excavation of an archaeological site in the Holy Land, during which he discovers how tells are formed.
 * American geostrategist Alfred Thayer Mahan publishes his influential book The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783.
 * Francis Galton announces a statistical demonstration of the uniqueness and classifiability of individual human fingerprints.
 * Alfred Tucker becomes Anglican Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa.

January

 * January 1 – Anton Melik, Slovenian geographer (d. 1966)
 * January 5 – Sarah Aaronsohn, member of the Jewish spy ring Nili (d. 1917)
 * January 4 – Victor Lustig, Bohemian-born con artist (d. 1947)
 * January 9
 * Kurt Tucholsky, German-born journalist and satirist (d. 1935)
 * Karel Čapek, Czech writer (d. 1938)
 * January 11 – Oswald de Andrade, Brazilian Modernist writer (d.1954)
 * January 19 – Élise Rivet, French Roman Catholic nun and war heroine (d. 1945)
 * January 22 – Fred M. Vinson, Chief Justice of the United States (d. 1953)
 * January 28 – Robert Franklin Stroud, Birdman of Alcatraz (d. 1963)

February

 * February 10 – Boris Pasternak, Russian writer (Doctor Zhivago), Nobel Prize laureate (declined) (d. 1960)
 * February 14 – Nina Hamnett, Welsh artist (d. 1956)
 * February 15 – Matome Ugaki, Japanese admiral (d. 1945)
 * February 16 – Francesco de Pinedo, Italian aviator (d. 1933)
 * February 17 – Ronald Fisher, English biologist (d. 1962)
 * February 18
 * Edward Arnold, American actor (d. 1956)
 * Adolphe Menjou, American actor (d. 1963)
 * February 24 – Marjorie Main, American actress (d. 1975)
 * February 25
 * Dame Myra Hess, English pianist (d. 1965)
 * Kiyohide Shima, Japanese admiral (d. 1973)
 * February 27 – Freddie Keppard, American jazz musician (d. 1933)

March

 * March 3 – Norman Bethune, Canadian doctor and humanitarian (d. 1939)
 * March 9
 * (new style) Vyacheslav Molotov, Soviet politician (d. 1986)
 * Rupert Balfe, Australian rules footballer (d. 1915)
 * March 11 – Vannevar Bush, American engineer, inventor, and politician (d. 1974)
 * March 20
 * Beniamino Gigli, Italian tenor (d. 1957)
 * Fania Marinoff, Russian born American actress (d. 1971)
 * Lauritz Melchior, Danish-American tenor (d. 1973)
 * March 26 – Aaron S. "Tip" Merrill, American admiral (d. 1961)
 * March 28 – Paul Whiteman, American bandleader (d. 1967)
 * March 31 – William Lawrence Bragg, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1971)

April

 * April 6 – Anthony Fokker, Dutch aircraft manufacturer (d. 1939)
 * April 7
 * Paul Berth, Danish amateur footballer (d. 1969)
 * Marjory Stoneman Douglas, American conservationist and writer (d. 1998)
 * Harry W. Hill, American admiral (d. 1971)
 * April 13
 * Frank Murphy, American politician and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1949)
 * Dadasaheb Torne, Indian filmmaker (d. 1960)
 * April 11 – Rachele Mussolini, Italian, wife of Benito Mussolini (d. 1979)
 * April 15 – Percy Shaw, British inventor (d. 1976)
 * April 16
 * Fred Root, English cricketer (d. 1954)
 * Vernon Sturdee, Australian general (d. 1966)
 * April 17 – Victor Chapman, French-American fighter pilot (d. 1916)
 * April 18 – Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia (d.1958)
 * April 20
 * Maurice Duplessis, premier of Quebec (d. 1959)
 * Adolf Schärf, former President of Austria (d. 1965)
 * April 21 – Michitaro Tozuka, Japanese admiral (d. 1966)
 * April 24 – Masatane Kanda, Japanese general (d. 1983)
 * April 26 – Edgar Kennedy, American comedic actor (d. 1948)

May

 * May 1 – Laurence Wild, 1913 NCAA Men's Basketball All-American, former head coach for the Navy Midshipmen men's basketball, and 30th Governor of American Samoa (d. 1971)
 * May 4 – Franklin Carmichael, Canadian artist (d. 1945)
 * May 10 – Alfred Jodl, German general (executed) (d. 1946)
 * May 11 – Woodall Rodgers, mayor of Dallas, Texas (d. 1961)
 * May 15 – Katherine Anne Porter, American author (d. 1980)
 * May 19 – Ho Chi Minh, Prime minister/President of North Vietnam (d. 1969)
 * May 23 – Herbert Marshall, English actor (d. 1966)

June

 * June 1 – Frank Morgan, American actor (d. 1949)
 * June 6 – Ted Lewis, American jazz musician and entertainer (d. 1971)
 * June 10 – William A. Seiter, American film director (d. 1964)
 * June 12 – Junius Matthews, American actor (d. 1978)
 * June 16 – Stan Laurel, English-born actor (d. 1965)
 * June 17 – Hatazō Adachi, Japanese general (d. 1947)
 * June 21 – Lewis H. Brereton, American aviation pioneer and air force general (d. 1967)
 * June 25 – Charlotte Greenwood, American actress (d. 1977)
 * June 26
 * Oscar C. Badger II, American admiral (d. 1958)
 * Jeanne Eagels, American actress (d. 1929)
 * June 28 – William H. P. Blandy, American admiral (d. 1954)
 * June 29 – Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper, Dutch supercentenarian (d. 2005)
 * June 30 – Paul Boffa, 5th Prime Minister of Malta (d. 1962)

July

 * July 9 – Joseph-Alphida Crête, Canadian politician (d. 1964)
 * July 11 – Arthur Tedder, 1st Baron Tedder, British air force air marshal (d. 1967)
 * July 18 – Frank Forde, Australian Prime Minister (d. 1983)
 * July 20 – Verna Felton, American character actress (d. 1966)
 * July 22 – Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, American philanthropist and matriarch of the Kennedy family (d. 1995)
 * July 26
 * Daniel J. Callaghan, American admiral and Medal of Honor recipient (d. 1942)
 * Seiichi Itō, Japanese admiral (d. 1945)
 * July 29 – P. S. Subrahmanya Sastri, Sanskrit scholar. First to translate Tolkāppiyam into English (d. 1978)

August

 * August 2 – Marin Sais, American film actress (d. 1971)
 * August 3 – Konstantin Melnikov, Russian avant-garde architect (d. 1974)
 * August 4 – Erich Weinert, German writer and political activist (d. 1953)
 * August 5 – Erich Kleiber, Austrian conductor (d. 1956)
 * August 10
 * Angus L. Macdonald, Nova Scotia Premier (d. 1954)
 * Bechara El Khoury, President of Lebanon (d. 1964)
 * August 15
 * Jacques Ibert, French composer (d. 1962)
 * Elizabeth Bolden, American, last verified person born in 1890 (d. 2006)
 * August 18 – Walther Funk, German politician (d. 1960)
 * August 20 – H. P. Lovecraft, American writer (d. 1937)
 * August 22 – Hans-Joachim Buddecke, German World War I fighter pilot and ace (d. 1918)
 * August 24 – Duke Kahanamoku, American swimmer (d. 1968)

September

 * September 7 – Harland Sanders, Founder of KFC (d. 1980)
 * September 8 – Dorothy Price, Irish physician (d. 1954)
 * September 10
 * Elsa Schiaparelli, French couturiere (d. 1973)
 * Sir Mortimer Wheeler, British archaeologist (d. 1976)
 * September 15
 * Agatha Christie, English writer (d. 1976)
 * Frank Martin, Swiss composer (d. 1974)
 * September 20
 * Jelly Roll Morton, American jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader (d. 1941)
 * Rachel Bluwstein, Israeli poet (d. 1931)
 * September 21 – Max Immelmann, German World War I fighter ace (d. 1916)
 * September 23
 * Kakuji Kakuta, Japanese admiral (d. 1944)
 * Friedrich Paulus, German field marshal (d. 1957)
 * September 24 – A. P. Herbert, English humorist, novelist, playwright and law reform activist (d. 1971)

October

 * October 1
 * Katherine Corri Harris, American socialite and actress first wife of John Barrymore (d. 1927)
 * Stanley Holloway, English actor (d. 1982)
 * Alice Joyce, American silent film actress (d. 1955)
 * Blanche Oelrichs, American poet second wife of John Barrymore (d. 1950)
 * October 2 – Groucho Marx, American comedian (d. 1977)
 * October 8
 * Henrich Focke, German aviation pioneer (d. 1979)
 * Eddie Rickenbacker, race car driver and American World War I fighter pilot (d. 1973)
 * October 13 – Conrad Richter, American novelist and short story writer (d. 1968)
 * October 14 – Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. general and 34th President of the United States (d. 1969)
 * October 16
 * Michael Collins, Irish patriot (d. 1922)
 * Paul Strand, American photographer (d. 1976)
 * October 17 – Roy Kilner, English cricketer (d. 1928)
 * October 20 – Sherman Minton, American politician and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1965)
 * October 25 – Floyd Bennett, American aviator and explorer (d. 1928)
 * October 29 – Hans-Valentin Hube, German army general (d. 1944)

November

 * November 7
 * Tomitarō Horii, Japanese general (d. 1942)
 * Jan Matulka, American painter (d. 1972)
 * November 8 – Conrad Weygand, German chemist (d. 1945)
 * November 20 – Leon Cadore, American baseball pitcher (d. 1968)
 * November 22 – Charles de Gaulle, President of France (d. 1970)
 * November 23 – El Lissitzky, Russian artist and architect (d. 1941)

December

 * December 5
 * David Bomberg, English painter (d. 1957)
 * Fritz Lang, German-Austrian filmmaker, screenwriter, and actor (d. 1976)
 * December 6 – Dion Fortune, British occultist (d. 1946)
 * December 8 – Bohuslav Martinů, Czech composer (d. 1959)
 * December 10 – Henry Louis Larsen, American Marine Corp General; Governor of American Samoa and Governor of Guam (d. 1962)
 * December 11 – Carlos Gardel, Argentine tango singer (d. 1935)
 * December 12– Charles Basil Price, Canadian soldier and politician (d. 1975)
 * December 20 – Jaroslav Heyrovský, Czech chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1967)
 * December 21 – Hermann Joseph Muller, American geneticist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1967)
 * December 25 – Robert Ripley, American collector of odd facts (d. 1949)
 * December 26 – Uncle Charlie Osborne, Appalachian fiddler (d. 1992)
 * December 30 – Lanoe Hawker, British fighter pilot (d. 1916)

Date unknown

 * John Aae, Norwegian politician (d. 1968)
 * Taixu, Chinese Buddhist activist (d. 1947)

January–June

 * January 7 – Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Empress Consort of William I, German Emperor (b. 1811)
 * January 18 – King Amadeus I of Spain (b. 1845)
 * February 22
 * John Jacob Astor III, American businessman (b. 1822)
 * Carl Heinrich Bloch, Danish painter (b. 1834)
 * March 3 – Innocenzo da Berzo, Capuchin friar (b. 1844)
 * March 7 – Karl Rudolf Friedenthal, Prussian statesman (b. 1827)
 * March 9 – Sir Mangaldas Nathubhoy, Indian politician (b. 1832)
 * March 16 – Princess Zorka of Montenegro (b. 1864)
 * April 1 – David Wilber, American politician (b. 1820)
 * April 1 – Alexander Mozhaysky, Russian aeronautical pioneer (b. 1825)
 * April 11
 * David de Jahacob Lopez Cardozo, Dutch Talmudist (b. 1808)
 * Joseph Merrick (The Elephant Man), English oddity (b. 1862)
 * June 24 – Subba Row, Hindu theosophist (b. 1856)
 * June 30 – Samuel Parkman Tuckerman, American composer (b. 1819)

July–December

 * July 7 – Henri Nestlé, Swiss confectioner and the founder of Nestlé (b. 1814)
 * July 9 – Clinton B. Fisk, American philanthropist and temperance activist (b. 1828)
 * July 13
 * John C. Frémont, American explorer and military officer (b. 1813)
 * Johann Voldemar Jannsen, Estonian journalist and poet (b. 1819)
 * July 15 – Gottfried Keller, Swiss writer (b. 1819)
 * July 29 – Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter (b. 1853)
 * August 6 – William Kemmler, American murderer, first person executed in the electric chair (b. 1860)
 * August 11 – John Henry Newman, English Roman Catholic Cardinal (b. 1801)
 * October 4 – Catherine Booth, Mother of The Salvation Army (b. 1829)
 * October 20 – Richard Francis Burton, English explorer, linguist, soldier (b. 1820)
 * October 26 – Carlo Collodi, Italian writer (The Adventures of Pinocchio) (b. 1826)
 * November 3 – Ulrich Ochsenbein, member of the Swiss Federal Council (b. 1811)
 * November 4 – Félix du Temple de la Croix, French Army Captain & aviation pioneer (b. 1823)
 * November 8 – César Franck, Belgian composer and organist (b. 1822)
 * November 11 – Marie-Charles David de Mayréna, French adventurer and self-styled King of Sedang (b. 1842)
 * November 23 – King William III of the Netherlands (b. 1817)
 * November 24 – August Belmont, Sr., Prussian-born financier (b. 1816)
 * December 15 – Sitting Bull, Native American chief (b. c. 1831)
 * December 21 – Johanne Luise Heiberg, Danish actress (b. 1812)
 * December 26 – Heinrich Schliemann, German archaeologist (b. 1822)
 * December 31 – Pancha Carrasco, Costa Rican war heroine (b. 1826)

Date unknown

 * Comanche, American horse, survivor of Custer's cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn
 * Ann Leah Underhill, one of the Fox sisters, American fraudulent medium (b. 1814)