1893

January–March

 * January 2 – Webb C. Ball introduces railroad chronometers, which become the general railroad timepiece standards in North America.
 * January 13 – The Independent Labour Party of the United Kingdom has its first meeting.
 * January 15 – The Telefon Hírmondó service starts with around 60 subscribers in Budapest.
 * January 17 – Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii: Lorrin A. Thurston and the Citizen's Committee of Public Safety in Hawaii with the intervention of the United States Marine Corps overthrow the government of Queen Liliuokalani.
 * January 21 – The Cherry Sisters first perform in Marion, Iowa.
 * February 1 – Thomas Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio in West Orange, New Jersey.
 * February 19 – The SS Naronic is believed to have sunk due to a storm.
 * February 23 – Rudolf Diesel receives a patent for the diesel engine.
 * February 24 – American University is established by an Act of Congress in Washington, D.C.
 * February 28 – USS Indiana, the first battleship in the United States Navy comparable to other nation's battleships of this time, is launched.
 * March 4 – Grover Cleveland is sworn in as President of the United States.
 * March 10 – Ivory Coast becomes a French colony.
 * March 20 – In Belgium, Adam Worth is sentenced to 7 years for robbery (he is released in 1897).

April–June

 * April 1 – The rank of Chief Petty Officer is established in the United States Navy.
 * April 6 – The iconic Salt Lake City Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is dedicated after 40 years of construction.
 * April 8 – The first recorded college basketball game occurs in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania between the Geneva College Covenanters and the New Brighton YMCA.
 * April 17 – Riots of Mons during the Belgian general strike of 1893, The day after, Belgian parliament approves Universal suffrage.
 * April 17 – The sorority Alpha Xi Delta is founded at Lombard College in Galesburg, Illinois.
 * May – The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland is formed.
 * May 1 – The 1893 World's Fair, also known as the World's Columbian Exposition, opens to the public in Chicago, USA. The first United States commemorative postage stamps are issued for the Exposition.
 * May 5 – Panic of 1893: A crash on the New York Stock Exchange starts a depression.
 * May 9 – Edison's 1½ inch system of Kinetoscope is first demonstrated in public at the Brooklyn Institute.
 * May 10 – The United States Supreme Court legally declares the tomato to be a vegetable.
 * May 23 – Gandhi arrives in South Africa where he will live until 1914, lead non-violent protests on behalf of Indian immigrants in the South African Republic (Transvaal) and generally have a deeper experience of such activities during these years.
 * June 6 – Prince George, Duke of York (later George V) marries Mary of Teck.
 * June 7 – Gandhi commits his first act of civil disobedience in India.
 * June 17 – Gold is found in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.
 * June 20 – The Wengernalpbahn railway in Wengen, Switzerland (Canton of Bern) is opened.
 * June 20 – Lizzie Borden acquitted of murdering her parents in Fall River, Massachusetts in 1892.
 * June 22 – The flagship HMS Victoria (1887) of the British Mediterranean Fleet collides with HMS Camperdown (1885) and sinks in 10 minutes; Vice-admiral Sir George Tryon goes down with his ship.

July–September

 * July 1 – U.S. President Grover Cleveland is operated on in secret.
 * July 6 – The small town of Pomeroy, Iowa, is nearly destroyed by a tornado; 71 people are killed and 200 injured.
 * July 11
 * A revolution led by liberal general and politician José Santos Zelaya takes over power in Nicaragua.
 * Kokichi Mikimoto, in Japan, develops the method to seed and grow cultured pearls.
 * July 12
 * Frederick Jackson Turner gives a lecture titled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" before the American Historical Association in Chicago.
 * Dundee F.C., a Scottish football club, is formed.
 * July 25 – Completion of the Corinth Canal in Greece.
 * August 15 – Ibadan area becomes a British Protectorate after a treaty signed by Fijabi, the Baale of Ibadan with the British acting Governor of Lagos, George C. Denton.
 * August 27 – The Sea Islands hurricane hits Savannah, Charleston, and the Sea Islands, killing 1,000–2,000.
 * September 1 – William Ewart Gladstone's Government of Ireland Bill 1893, intended to give Ireland self-government, is rejected by the British Parliament.
 * September 7
 * Under the pressure of a general strike, the Belgian Federal Parliament accepts a proposal to accept general multiple suffrage.
 * Russian monitor Rusalka sinks in the Gulf of Finland with the loss of all 177 crew.
 * Genoa Cricket & Athletic Club, the oldest Italian football club, is formed.
 * September 11
 * The World Parliament of Religions in Chicago opens its first meeting.
 * Standing ovation to Hindu monk Swami Vivekanda for his address in response to the welcome at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.
 * September 19
 * Swami Vivekananda delivers an inspiring speech on his paper at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.
 * New Zealand becomes the first country in the world to grant women the right to vote.
 * The Russian ironclad Rusalka disappears in a storm en route from Tallinn to Helsinki; her hulk is eventually discovered in July 2003, off Helsinki.
 * September 21 – Brothers Charles and Frank Duryea drive the first gasoline-powered motorcar in America on public roads in Springfield, Massachusetts.
 * September 23 – The Bahá'í Faith is first publicly mentioned in the United States at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.
 * September 27 – The World Parliament of Religions holds its closing meeting in Chicago.
 * September 28 – The Portuguese sports club Futebol Clube do Porto is founded.

October–December

 * October 10 – The first car number plates appear in Paris, France.
 * October 13 – First students enter St Hilda's College, Oxford, England, founded for women by Dorothea Beale.
 * October 23 – The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) is founded by Bulgarians in the town of Thessaloniki. Its aim is to liberate the region of Macedonia from the Ottoman Turks.
 * October 28 (October 16 O.S.) – In Saint Petersburg (Russia), Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky conducts the first performance of his Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Pathétique nine days before his death.
 * October 30 – The 1893 World's Fair, also known as the World's Columbian Exposition, closes.
 * November 7 – Colorado women are granted the right to vote.
 * November 12 – The Durand Line is established as the boundary between British India and Afghanistan by a memorandum of understanding signed by Sir Mortimer Durand, Foreign Secretary of British India, and Abdur Rahman Khan, Amir of Afghanistan.
 * November 15 – FC Basel football club is founded in Switzerland.
 * November 16 – The athletic club Královské Vinohrady, later Sparta Prague, is founded.
 * December 4 – First Matabele War: The Shangani Patrol of British South Africa Company soldiers is ambushed and annihilated by more than 3,000 Matabele warriors.
 * December 5 – Plural voting is abolished in New South Wales.
 * December 16 – Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" receives its premiere at Carnegie Hall, New York City.
 * December 20 – Evergreen Park, Illinois, is incorporated.
 * December
 * Carl Anton Larsen becomes the first man to ski in Antarctica.
 * Arthur Conan Doyle surprises the reading public by revealing in the story The Adventure of the Final Problem, published in this month's Strand Magazine, that his character Sherlock Holmes had apparently died at the Reichenbach Falls on May 4, 1891.

Date unknown

 * Siam concedes Laos to France.
 * The American Council on Alcohol Problems is established, along with the Anti-Saloon League and the Committee of Fifty for the Study of the Liquor Problem.
 * American Temperance University is opened.
 * American sisters Patty and Mildred J. Hill publish Song Stories for the Kindergarten including "Good Morning to All", which later becomes known as "Happy Birthday to You".
 * Physicist Wilhelm Wien formulates Wien's displacement law.
 * Millbank Prison in London is demolished.
 * In the U.S., the National Sculpture Society (NSS) is founded.
 * The football club Dulwich Hamlet is founded.
 * TMI — The Episcopal School of Texas is founded.
 * The National Education Association in the United States releases final report from the Committee of Ten recommending standardization of the high school curriculum.
 * Colored High becomes the first African-American high school in Houston, Texas; its name is later changed to Booker T. Washington High School.
 * The Ardabil Carpet is brought to London.
 * Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, is incorporated as a town.
 * Small anti-Semitic parties secure 2.9% of votes in Germany.
 * Before 1893 – 8,000 Chinese arrive in Cuba.
 * 71.2% of the working population of São Paulo is foreign-born.

January–March

 * January 1 – Minoru Sasaki, Japanese general (d. 1961)
 * January 4 – Yone Minagawa, Japanese supercentenarian (d. 2007)
 * January 5 – Paramahansa Yogananda, Indian guru (d. 1952)
 * January 10 – Vicente Huidobro, Chilean poet (d. 1948)
 * January 11 – Anthony M. Rud, American writer (d. 1942)
 * January 12
 * Edward Selzer, American film producer (d. 1970)
 * Hermann Göring, German Nazi official (d. 1946)
 * Alfred Rosenberg, German Nazi official (d. 1946)
 * January 15 – Ivor Novello, Welsh actor and musician (d. 1951)
 * January 22
 * Arthur Smith, Australian public servant (d. 1971)
 * Conrad Veidt, German actor (d. 1943)
 * Frankie Yale, American gangster (d. 1928)
 * January 27 – Soong Ching-ling, one of the Soong sisters, wife of Chinese president Sun Yat-sen (d. 1981)
 * February 3 – Gaston Julia, French mathematician (d. 1978)
 * February 10 – Jimmy Durante, American actor, singer, and comedian (d. 1980)
 * February 12 – Omar Bradley, American general (d. 1981)
 * February 13
 * Ana Pauker, Romanian communist politician (d. 1960)
 * Zénon Bernard, Luxembourgish communist politician (d. 1942)
 * February 16
 * Katharine Cornell, American actress (d. 1974)
 * Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Soviet Army officer (d. 1937)
 * February 19 – Sir Cedric Hardwicke, English actor (d. 1964)
 * February 21 – Andrés Segovia, Spanish guitarist (d. 1987)
 * February 24 – Tokushichi Mishima, Japanese inventor, engineer (d. 1975)
 * February 28 – Ivan Vasilyov, Bulgarian architect (d. 1979)
 * March 1 – Mercedes de Acosta, American poet, playwright, costume designer, and socialite (d. 1968)
 * March 3
 * Beatrice Wood, American artist and ceramicist (d. 1998)
 * Ivon Hitchens, English painter (d. 1979)
 * March 11 – Wanda Gág, American children's author and artist (d. 1946)
 * March 14 – Arthur C. Davis, American admiral (d. 1965)
 * March 18 – Wilfred Owen, English soldier and poet (d. 1918)
 * March 19 – José María Velasco Ibarra, former President of Ecuador (d. 1979)
 * March 22 – Kleber Claux, French-born Australian anarchist and nudist (d. 1971)
 * March 24
 * Walter Baade, German astronomer (d. 1960)
 * Emmy Sonnemann, German actress, second wife of Hermann Göring (d. 1973)
 * March 26 – Palmiro Togliatti, Italian communist leader (d. 1964)
 * March 31 – Herbert Meinhard Mühlpfordt, German historian (d. 1982)

April–June

 * April 1 – Cicely Courtneidge, British actress (d. 1980)
 * April 3 – Leslie Howard, English actor (d. 1943)
 * April 6– Alfred Gerstenberg, German Luftwaffe general (d. 1959)
 * April 9
 * Victor Gollancz, British publisher (d. 1967)
 * Rahul Sankrityayan, Indian historian, writer, scholar (d. 1963)
 * April 12 – Robert Harron, American actor (d. 1920)
 * April 15 – Maximilian Ritter von Pohl, German army and air-force officer (d. 1951)
 * April 18 – Georges Boulanger, Romanian violinist (d. 1958)
 * April 20
 * Harold Lloyd, American actor (d. 1971)
 * Joan Miró, Spanish painter and sculptor (d. 1983)
 * Edna Parker, American supercentenarian (d. 2008)
 * April 21 – Matsuji Ijuin, Japanese admiral (d. 1944)
 * April 23 – Allen Dulles, American Central Intelligence Agency director (d. 1969)
 * April 29 – Harold C. Urey, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1981)
 * April 30 – Harold Breen, Australian public servant (d. 1966)
 * May 3 – Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, Georgian writer and public benefactor (d. 1975)
 * May 8
 * Teddy Wakelam, English sports broadcaster and rugby union player (d. 1963)
 * Francis Ouimet, American golfer and businessman (d. 1967)
 * May 16 – Clement Martyn Doke, South African linguist (d. 1980)
 * May 21 – Giles Chippindall, Australian public servant (d. 1969)
 * May 23 – Ulysses S. Grant IV, American geologist and paleontologist (d. 1977)
 * May 26 – Norma Talmadge, American actress (d. 1957)
 * June 7 – Gillis Grafström, Swedish figure skater (d. 1938)
 * June 12 – John R. Hodge, United States Army general (d. 1963)
 * June 13 – Dorothy L. Sayers, British crime writer, poet, playwright and essayist (d. 1957)
 * June 14 – Siggie Nordstrom, American model, actress, entertainer, socialite and singer (d. 1980)
 * June 24
 * Roy Oliver Disney, brother and business partner of Walter Elias Disney (d. 1971)
 * Suzanne La Follette, libertarian feminist (d. 1983)
 * June 26 – Big Bill Broonzy, American blues singer and composer (d. 1958)
 * June 29 – Aarre Merikanto, Finnish composer (d. 1958)
 * June 30
 * Harold Laski, British political theorist and economist (d. 1950)
 * Walter Ulbricht, German Communist politician (d. 1973)

July–September

 * July 1 – Mario de Bernardi, Italian aviator (d. 1959)
 * July 3 – Mississippi John Hurt, American musician (d. 1966)
 * July 4 – Norman Manley, Jamaican statesman (d. 1969)
 * July 9 – George Geary, English cricketer (d. 1981)
 * July 12 – John Gould Moyer, American naval officer, 31st Governor of American Samoa (d. 1976)
 * July 18 – Richard Dix, American actor (d. 1949)
 * July 20 – George Llewelyn Davies, inspiration for Peter Pan (d. 1915)
 * July 25 – Dorothy Dickson, American-born actress and socialite (d. 1995)
 * July 28 – Rued Langgaard, Danish composer and organist (d. 1952)
 * July 30 – Fatima Jinnah, Pakistani Mother of the Nation (d. 1967)
 * August 4 – Fritz Gause, German historian (d. 1973)
 * August 6 – Wright Patman, American politician (d. 1976)
 * August 14
 * Francis Dvornik, Czech historian (d. 1975)
 * Carl Benton Reid, American actor (d. 1973)
 * August 15 – Leslie Comrie, New Zealand astronomer and computing pioneer (d. 1950)
 * August 17 – Mae West, American actress, playwright, screenwriter, and sex symbol (d. 1980)
 * August 18 – Frank Linke-Crawford, Austro-Hungarian fighter pilot (d. 1918)
 * August 22
 * Dorothy Parker, American writer (d. 1967)
 * Wilfred Kitching, the 7th General of The Salvation Army (d. 1977)
 * August 24 – Haim Ernst Wertheimer German-born Israeli biochemist, recipient of the Israel Prize (d. 1978)
 * August 25 – Henry Trendley Dean, American dental researcher (d. 1962)
 * August 30 – Huey Long, Louisiana governor and senator (d. 1935)
 * September 6 – Claire Lee Chennault, American aviator and general, leader of the Flying Tigers (d. 1958)
 * September 10
 * Juana Bormann, German Nazi war criminal (d. 1945)
 * Maria de Jesus, Portuguese supercentenarian (d. 2009)
 * September 12 – Frederick William Franz, President of Jehovah's Witnesses (d. 1992)
 * September 13 – Larry Shields, American musician (d. 1953)
 * September 16 – Albert Szent-Györgyi, Hungarian physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1986)
 * September 18
 * Arthur Benjamin, Australian composer (d. 1960)
 * William March, American writer and soldier (d. 1954)
 * Reidar Rye Haugan, American newspaper editor and publisher (d. 1972)
 * September 30 – Lansdale Sasscer, U.S. Congressman (d. 1964)

October–December

 * October 1 – Marianne Brandt, German industrial designer (d. 1983)
 * October 8 – Clarence Williams, American jazz pianist and composer (d. 1965). Some sources give his year of birth as 1898.
 * October 9 – Mário de Andrade, Brazilian writer and photographer (d. 1945)
 * October 14 – Lillian Gish, American actress (d. 1993)
 * October 15 – King Carol II of Romania (d. 1953)
 * October 16 – Harry Donenfeld, American publisher (d. 1965)
 * October 18 – George Ohsawa, Japanese founder of Macrobiotics (d. 1966)
 * October 23 – Gummo Marx, American comedian and actor (d. 1977)
 * October 26 – Oliver P. Smith, American general (d. 1977)
 * November 2 – Victor Crutchley, British admiral (d. 1986)
 * November 3 – Edward Adelbert Doisy, American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1986)
 * November 5 – Raymond Loewy, French-born American industrial designer (d. 1986)
 * November 8 – Prajadhipok, Rama VII, king of Thailand (d. 1941)
 * November 10 – John P. Marquand, American novelist (d. 1960)
 * November 12 – Leonard F. Wing, American general and Vermont politician (d. 1945)
 * November 20 – Grace Darmond, Canadian-born American actress (d. 1963)
 * November 22 – Raymond Collishaw, Canadian World War I fighter ace (d. 1976)
 * November 24 – Fern Andra, American actress (d. 1974)
 * December 1 – Henry J. Cadbury, American biblical scholar and Quaker (d. 1974)
 * December 2 – Leo Ornstein, Russian-born composer and pianist (d. 2002)
 * December 3
 * Walter Stuart Diehl, American naval officer and aeronautical engineer (d. 1976)
 * Wilhelm Pelikan, Austrian chemist (d. 1981)
 * December 7
 * Fay Bainter, American actress (d. 1968)
 * Hermann Balck, German general (d. 1982)
 * December 8 – Pierre Etchebaster, French real tennis player (d. 1980)
 * December 23 – Ann Pennington, American actress and dancer (d. 1971)
 * December 24 – Ruth Chatterton, American actress (d. 1961)
 * December 26 – Mao Zedong, Chinese leader (d. 1976)
 * December 29 – Berthold Bartosch, Bohemian animator (d. 1968)

Date unknown

 * Otto Eppers, American cartoonist (d. 1955)
 * Henry Matthew Talintyre, British artist (d. 1962)
 * Russell Johnson, cartoonist (d. 1995)

January–June

 * January 2 – John Obadiah Westwood, British entomologist (b. 1805)
 * January 7 – Jožef Stefan, Slovenian physicist, mathematician, and poet (b. 1835)
 * January 11 – Benjamin Butler, American lawyer, politician, and general (b. 1818)
 * January 17 – Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th President of the United States (b. 1822)
 * January 23 – Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, U.S. Supreme Court justice (b. 1825)
 * January 27 – James G. Blaine, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, US Senator, and US Secretary of State
 * February 1 – George Henry Sanderson, Mayor of San Francisco (b. 1824)
 * February 4 – Concepción Arenal, Spanish feminist writer and activist (b. 1820)
 * February 10 – Henry Churchill de Mille, American dramatist and playwright; father of Cecil B. DeMille (b. 1853)
 * February 18
 * King George Tupou I of Tonga (b. 1797)
 * Serranus Clinton Hastings, American politician (b. 1814)
 * February 20 – P. G. T. Beauregard, American Confederate general (b. 1818)
 * March 16 – William H. Illingworth, American photographer (b. 1844)
 * March 17
 * Jules Ferry, French premier (b. 1832)
 * Lucy Isabella Buckstone, English actress (b. 1857)
 * March 18
 * Bandō Kakitsu I, Japanese kabuki actor (b. 1847)
 * George Alexander Baird, called Squire Abington, wealthy English horse breeder (b. 1861)
 * March 30 – Jane Sym-Mackenzie, second wife of Canada's second prime minister (b. 1825)
 * April 8 – August Czartoryski, Polish prince (b. 1858)
 * April 19 – John Addington Symonds, English poet and literary critic (b. 1840)
 * April 22 – Edward Fitzgerald Beale, American adventurer and businessman (b.1822)
 * June 7 – Edwin Booth, American actor (b. 1833)
 * June 14 – Jakob Frohschammer, theologian and philosopher (b. 1821)
 * June 19 – William Rosecrans, California congressman and Register of the U.S. Treasury (b. 1819)
 * June 21 – Leland Stanford, Governor of California (b. 1824)
 * June 22 – George Tryon, British admiral (b. 1832)
 * June 23 – Sir Theophilus Shepstone, South African statesman (b. 1817)

July–December

 * July 2 – Georgiana Drew Barrymore, American actress-comedian (b. 1856)
 * July 6 – Guy de Maupassant, French writer (b. 1850)
 * July 16 – Antonio Ghislanzoni, Italian politician and journalist (b. 1833)
 * August 6 – Jean-Jacques Challet-Venel, member of the Swiss Federal Council (b. 1811)
 * August 7 – Alfredo Catalani, Italian composer (b. 1854)
 * August 20 – Baron Alexander Wassilko von Serecki, Governor of the Duchy of Bucovina and member of the Herrenhaus (b. 1827)
 * October 6 – Ford Madox Brown, English painter (b. 1821)
 * October 8 – John Willis Menard, African-American politician (b. 1838)
 * October 10 – Lip Pike, American baseball player (b. 1845)
 * October 17 – Patrice de MacMahon, Duke of Magenta, French general and politician, first president of the Third Republic (1875-1879) (b. 1808)
 * October 18 – Charles Gounod, French composer (b. 1818)
 * October 22 – Duleep Singh, ruler of Punjab (b. 1838)
 * October 23 – Alexander of Battenberg, first prince of Bulgaria (b. 1857)
 * October 30 – John Abbott, 3rd Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1821)
 * November 6 – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer (b. 1840)
 * November 8 – Annie Pixley, American actress (b. 1848)
 * November 22 – James Calder, 5th President of Pennsylvania State University (b. 1826)
 * December 20 – George C. Magoun, American railroad executive (b. 1840)

Date unknown

 * Julius Dresser, American writer (b. 1838)
 * Margaret Fox, American medium (b. 1833)
 * Marie Durocher, Brazilian obstetrician and physician (b. 1809)