1898

January–March

 * January 1 – New York City annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York as the world's second largest. The city is geographically divided into five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx and Staten Island.
 * January 13 – Novelist Émile Zola's open letter to the President of the French Republic on the Dreyfus affair, J'accuse…!, is published on the front page of the Paris daily newspaper L'Aurore, accusing the government of wrongfully imprisoning Alfred Dreyfus and of antisemitism.
 * February 12 – The electric car belonging to Henry Lindfield of Brighton rolls out of control down a hill in Purley, London, England, and hits a tree; thus he becomes the world's first fatality from an automobile accident on a public highway.
 * February 15 – Spanish–American War: The USS Maine explodes and sinks in Havana harbor, Cuba, for reasons never fully established, killing 266 men. The event percipitates the United States' declaration of war on Spain two months later.
 * March 24 – Robert Allison of Port Carbon, Pennsylvania, becomes the first person to buy an American-built automobile when he buys a Winton automobile that has been advertised in Scientific American.
 * March 26 – The Sabie Game Reserve in South Africa is created, the first officially designated game reserve.

April–June

 * April 5 – Annie Oakley promotes the service of women in combat situations with the United States military. On this day, she writes a letter to President McKinley "offering the government the services of a company of 50 'lady sharpshooters' who would provide their own arms and ammunition should war break out with Spain." In the history of women in the military, there are records of female U.S. Revolutionary and Civil War soldiers who enlisted using male pseudonyms, but Oakley's letter represents possibly the earliest political move towards women's rights for combat service in the United States military.
 * April 22 – Spanish–American War: The United States Navy begins a blockade of Cuban ports and the USS Nashville captures a Spanish merchant ship.
 * April 25 – Spanish–American War: The United States declares war on Spain; the U.S. Congress announces that a state of war has existed since April 21 (later backdating this one more day to April 20).
 * April 25: In Essen German company Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk RWE is founded.
 * April 26 – An explosion in Santa Cruz, California, kills 13 workers at the California Powder Works.
 * May 1 – Spanish–American War – Battle of Manila Bay: Commodore Dewey destroys the Spanish squadron. The first battle of the war, as well as the first battle in the Philippines Campaign.
 * May 2 – Thousands of Chinese scholars and Beijing citizens seeking reforms protest in front of the capital control yuan.
 * May 7–May 9 – Bava-Beccaris massacre: Hundreds of demonstrators are killed when General Fiorenzo Bava-Beccaris orders troops to fire on a rally in Milan, Italy.
 * May 8 – The first games of the Italian Football League are played.
 * May 12 – Bombardment of San Juan, the first major battle of the Puerto Rican Campaign during the Spanish–American War.
 * May 27 – The territory of Kwang-Chou-Wan is leased by China to France, according to the Treaty of 12 April 1892, as the Territoire de Kouang-Tchéou-Wan, forming part of French Indochina.
 * May 28 – Secondo Pia takes the first photographs of the Shroud of Turin and discovers that the image on Shroud itself appears to be a photographic negative.
 * June 1 – The Trans-Mississippi Exposition world's fair opens in Omaha, Nebraska.
 * June 7 – William Ramsay and Morris Travers discover neon at their laboratory at University College London after extracting it from liquid nitrogen.
 * June 9 – The British government makes a 99 year rent of Hong Kong from China.
 * June 12 – Philippine Declaration of Independence: General Emilio Aguinaldo declares the Philippines' independence from Spain.
 * June 13 – Yukon Territory is formed, with Dawson chosen as its capital.
 * June 21 – Spanish–American War: The United States captures Guam making it the first U.S. overseas territory.

July–September

 * July 1 – Spanish–American War: Battle of San Juan Hill – United States troops including Buffalo Soldiers and Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders take a strategic position close to Santiago de Cuba from the Spanish.
 * July 3
 * Spanish–American War: Battle of Santiago de Cuba – The United States Navy destroys the Spanish Navy's Caribbean Squadron.
 * Joshua Slocum completes a 3-year solo circumnavigation of the world.
 * July 4 – En route from New York to Le Havre, the ocean liner SS La Bourgogne collides with another ship and sinks off the coast of Sable Island, with the loss of 549 lives.
 * July 7 – The United States annexes the Hawaiian Islands.
 * July 17 – Spanish–American War: Battle of Santiago Bay – Troops under United States General William R. Shafter take the city of Santiago de Cuba from the Spanish.
 * July 18 – "The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont" first appear in The Wide World Magazine, as its August 1898 issue goes on sale.
 * July 25 – Spanish–American War: The United States invasion of Puerto Rico begins with a landing at Guánica Bay.
 * August 12 – Spanish–American War: Hostilities end between American and Spanish forces in Cuba.
 * August 20 – Opening of the Gornergrat railway, connecting Zermatt to the Gornergrat.
 * August 23 – The Southern Cross Expedition, the first British venture of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, sets sail from London.
 * August 25 – 700 Greeks and 15 Englishmen are slaughtered by the Turks in Heraklion, Greece, leading to the establishment of the autonomous Cretan State.
 * August 28 – Caleb Bradham names his soft drink Pepsi-Cola.
 * September 2 – Battle of Omdurman: British and Egyptian troops led by Horatio Kitchener defeat Sudanese tribesmen led by Khalifa Abdullah al-Taashi, thus establishing British dominance in the Sudan.
 * September 10 – Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni assassinates Empress Elisabeth of Austria in Geneva as an act of propaganda of the deed.
 * September 18 – Fashoda Incident: A powerful flotilla of British gunboats arrives at the French-occupied fort of Fashoda on the White Nile, leading to a diplomatic stalemate until French troops are ordered to withdraw on November 3.
 * September 21 – Empress Dowager Cixi of China engineers a coup d'état, marking the end of the Hundred Days' Reform; the Guangxu Emperor is arrested.

October–December

 * October 1 – The Vienna University of Economics and Business is founded under the name K.U.K. Exportakademie.
 * October 3 – Battle of Sugar Point: Ojibwe tribesmen defeat U.S. government troops in northern Minnesota.
 * October 6 – The Sinfonia Club, later to become the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity, is founded at the New England Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts.
 * October 12 – The first town council is established in Mateur (Tunisia).
 * October 15 The Fork Union Military Academy is founded, in Fork Union, Virginia.
 * October 31 – Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem, is dedicated.
 * November 5 – Negros Revolution: Filipinos on the island of Negros revolt against Spanish rule and establish the short-lived Republic of Negros.
 * November 10 – Wilmington insurrection of 1898, a coup d'etat by the white Democratic Party of North Carolina, begins.
 * November 26 – A two-day blizzard known as the Portland Gale piles snow in Boston and severely impacts the Massachusetts fishing industry and several coastal New England towns.
 * December 9 – The first of the two Tsavo Man-Eaters is shot by John Henry Patterson; the second is killed 3 weeks later, after 135 workers have been killed by the lions.
 * December 10 – The Treaty of Paris is signed, ending the Spanish–American War.
 * December 26 – Marie and Pierre Curie announce discovery of an element they name radium.
 * December 29 (December 17 Old Style) – Moscow Art Theatre production of The Seagull by Anton Chekhov opens.

Unknown dates

 * North Petherton becomes the first town in England to install Acetylene lighting.
 * John Jacob Abel isolates epinephrine (adrenaline).
 * Wakita is founded in the Cherokee Strip, Oklahoma.
 * As a result of the merger of several small oil companies, John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company controls 84% of the USA's oil and most American pipelines.
 * Henry Adams Consulting Engineers founded by Henry Adams (mechanical engineer) in Baltimore, Maryland. The firm is still in business to this day. (1898–Present)

January–March

 * January 1 – Tony DeMarco, American dancer (d. 1965)
 * January 3 – John Loder, British actor (d. 1988)
 * January 7 – Art Baker, American actor (d. 1966)
 * January 9 – Gracie Fields, British singer, actress and comedian (d. 1979)
 * January 16
 * Margaret Booth, American film editor (d. 2002)
 * Irving Rapper, English-born American director (d. 1999)
 * January 18 – Margaret Irving, American actress (d. 1988)
 * January 20
 * John George, Ottoman-born American actor (d. 1968)
 * Tudor Owen Welsh-American actor (d. 1979)
 * Norma Varden, British-born American actress (d. 1989)
 * January 21
 * Rudolph Maté, Polish-born American cinematographer and film director (d. 1964)
 * Ahmad Shah Qajar, Shah of Persia (d. 1930)
 * January 22
 * Sergei Eisenstein, Russian and Soviet film director (d. 1948)
 * Elazar Shach, Haredi rabbi (d. 2001)
 * January 23
 * Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, Colombian politician (d. 1948)
 * Randolph Scott, American film actor (d. 1987)
 * January 25 – Hymie Weiss, American gangster (d. 1926)
 * January 26 – Katarzyna Kobro, Russian sculptor (d. 1951)
 * February 1 – Leila Denmark, American pediatrician and supercentenarian (d. 2012)
 * February 2 – William "Billy" Costello, American voice actor, the original voice of Popeye (d. 1971)
 * February 3 – Alvar Aalto, Finnish architect (d. 1976)
 * February 5
 * Sidney Fields, American actor (d. 1975)
 * Denjirō Ōkōchi, Japanese actor (d. 1962)
 * February 10
 * Bertolt Brecht, German writer (d. 1956)
 * Robert Keith, American actor (d. 1966)
 * Joseph Kessel, French journalist and author (d. 1979)
 * February 11
 * Henry de La Falaise, French film director and Croix de guerre recipient (d. 1972)
 * Leó Szilárd, Hungarian-American physicist (d. 1964)
 * February 12
 * Wallace Ford, British actor (d. 1966)
 * Roy Harris, American composer (d. 1979)
 * Audrey Jeffers, Trinidadian social worker and politician (d. 1968)
 * Blue Washington, American actor and Negro league baseball player (d. 1970)
 * February 14
 * Eva Novak, American actress (d. 1988)
 * Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz, Argentine writer, journalist, essayist and poet (d. 1959)
 * Fritz Zwicky, Swiss physicist and astronomer (d. 1974)
 * February 15
 * Bud Geary, American actor (d. 1946)
 * Totò, Italian comedian, actor, poet, and songwriter (d. 1967)
 * Allen Woodring, American runner (d. 1982)
 * February 18
 * Enzo Ferrari, Italian race car driver and automobile manufacturer (d. 1988)
 * Luis Muñoz Marín, Puerto Rican poet, journalist and politician (d. 1980)
 * February 20 – Semyon Davidovich Kirlian, Russian inventor (d. 1978)
 * February 25 – William Astbury, English physicist and molecular biologist (d. 1961)
 * February 24 – Kurt Tank, German aeronautical engineer (d. 1983)
 * February 27 – Otto Hulett, American actor (d. 1983)
 * February 28
 * Hugh O'Flaherty, Irish Catholic priest (d. 1963)
 * Molly Picon, American actress and lyricist (d. 1992)
 * March 3 – Emil Artin, Austrian mathematician (d. 1962)
 * March 4 – Georges Dumézil, French philologist (d. 1940)
 * March 5
 * Misao Okawa, Japanese supercentenarian (d. 2015)
 * Zhou Enlai, Premier of the People's Republic of China (d. 1976)
 * March 6 – Therese Giehse, German actress (d. 1975)
 * March 10 – Cy Kendall, American actor (d. 1953)
 * March 11 – Dorothy Gish, American actress (d. 1968)
 * March 13 – Henry Hathaway, American film director and producer (d. 1985)
 * March 14 – Arnold Chikobava, Georgian linguist (d. 1985)
 * March 21 – Paul Alfred Weiss, Austrian biologist (d. 1989)
 * March 23 – Erich Bey, German admiral (d. 1943)
 * March 25 – Marcelle Narbonne, French supercentenarian, oldest European living person (d. 2012)
 * March 30 – Joyce Carey, English actress (d. 1993)
 * March 31 – Hermann van Pels, German-Dutch father of Peter van Pels, housemate of Anne Frank (d. 1944)

April–June

 * April 1 – William James Sidis, American mathematician (d. 1944)
 * April 2 – Harindranath Chattopadhyay, Indian poet, actor and politician (d. 1990)
 * April 3 – George Jessel, American comedian (d. 1981)
 * April 4 – Agnes Ayres, American actress (d. 1940)
 * April 6 – Jeanne Hébuterne, French painter (d. 1920)
 * April 9 – Paul Robeson, American actor, singer, and political activist (d. 1976)
 * April 12 – Lily Pons, French-American opera singer and actress (d. 1976)
 * April 14 – Lee Tracy, American actor (d. 1968)
 * April 15 – Marian Driscoll Jordan, American actress (d. 1961)
 * April 19 – Constance Talmadge, American actress (d. 1973)
 * April 20 – Sidney Lanfield, American film director (d. 1972)
 * April 21 – Walter Forde, British actor, screenwriter, and film director (d. 1984)
 * April 23 – Ernest Laszlo, Hungarian-American cinematographer (d. 1984)
 * April 26
 * Vicente Aleixandre, Spanish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1984)
 * John Grierson, Scottish documentary filmmaker (d. 1972)
 * Tomu Uchida, Japanese film director (d. 1970)
 * May 2 – Henry Hall, British bandleader (d. 1989)
 * May 3 – Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel (d. 1978)
 * May 5
 * Elsie Eaves, American civil engineer (d. 1983)
 * Blind Willie McTell, American singer (d. 1959)
 * Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, German actor (d. 1958)
 * May 6 – Konrad Henlein, Sudeten German Nazi leader (d. 1945)
 * May 13
 * Hisamuddin of Selangor, King of Malaysia (d. 1960)
 * Justin Tuveri, Italian veteran of the First World War (d. 2007)
 * May 14 – Betty Farrington, American actress (d. 1989)
 * May 15 – Arletty, French model and actress (d. 1992)
 * May 16
 * Tamara de Lempicka, Art Deco painter (d. 1980)
 * Kenji Mizoguchi, Japanese film director (d. 1956)
 * May 17 – Alfred Joseph Casson, Canadian painter (d. 1992)
 * May 19 – Julius Evola, Italian philosopher (d. 1974)
 * May 21 – Armand Hammer, American entrepreneur and art collector (d. 1990)
 * May 23
 * Frank McHugh, American actor (d. 1981)
 * Scott O'Dell, American author (d. 1989)
 * May 24 – Helen B. Taussig, American cardiologist (d. 1986)
 * May 25 – Bennett Cerf, American publisher (d. 1971)
 * May 27 – Lee Garmes, American cinematographer (d. 1978)
 * May 31
 * Ernest Haller, American cinematographer (d. 1974)
 * Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, American clergyman (d. 1993)
 * June 2 – Marie-Thérèse Bardet, French supercentenarian, oldest European living person (d. 2012)
 * June 3 – Stuart H. Ingersoll, American admiral (d. 1983)
 * June 4 – Harry Crosby, American publisher and poet (d. 1929)
 * June 5
 * Federico García Lorca, Spanish poet and playwright (d. 1936)
 * Guy La Chambre, French politician (d. 1975)
 * June 6
 * Walter Abel, American actor (d. 1987)
 * Ninette de Valois, Irish dancer and founder of The Royal Ballet, London (d. 2001)
 * Jim Fouché, second State President of South Africa (d. 1980)
 * June 10 – Virginia Valli, American film actress (d. 1968)
 * June 12 – Charley Foy, American actor (d. 1984)
 * June 17
 * M. C. Escher, Dutch artist (d. 1972)
 * Harry Patch, British World War I soldier, last Tommy Atkins (d. 2009)
 * June 18
 * Carleton Hobbs, English actor, playing Sherlock Holmes for two decades (d. 1978)
 * Dink Trout, American actor (d. 1950)
 * June 22 – Erich Maria Remarque, German writer (d. 1970)
 * June 23 – Lillian Hall-Davis, English actress (d. 1933)
 * June 25 – Buddy Roosevelt, American actor and stunt performer (d. 1973)
 * June 26 – Willy Messerschmitt, German aircraft designer and manufacturer (d. 1978)
 * June 28 – Louis King, American film director (d. 1962)
 * June 30 – George Chandler, American actor (d. 1985)

July–September

 * July 2
 * George Folsey, American cinematographer (d. 1988)
 * Anthony McAuliffe, American general (d. 1975)
 * Gen Paul, French artist (d. 1975)
 * July 3 – Donald Healey, English motor engineer and race car driver (d. 1988)
 * July 4
 * Gertrude Lawrence, English actress and singer (d. 1952)
 * Johnny Lee, American singer, dancer, and actor (d. 1965)
 * Gertrude Weaver, American supercentenarian (d. 2015)
 * July 6 – Hanns Eisler, German composer (d. 1962)
 * July 7 – Maria Nunes da Silva Portuguese supercentenarian (d. 2011)
 * Arnold Horween, Harvard Crimson and NFL football player (d. 1985)
 * July 14
 * David Horne, English actor (d. 1970)
 * John Twist, American screenwriter (d. 1976)
 * Youssef Wahbi, Egyptian actor and film director (d. 1982)
 * July 17
 * Osmond Borradaile, Canadian cameraman, cinematographer and veteran of First and Second World War (d. 1999)
 * Berenice Abbott, American photographer (d. 1991)
 * George Robert Vincent, American sound recording pioneer (d. 1985)
 * July 13 – Ivan Triesault, Estonian-born American actor (d. 1980)
 * July 18 – John Stuart, Scottish actor (d. 1979)
 * July 21 – Sara Carter, American country music singer, musician, and songwriter (d. 1979)
 * July 22
 * Stephen Vincent Benét, American writer (d. 1943)
 * Alexander Calder, American artist (d. 1976)
 * July 25 – Arthur Lubin, American film director (d. 1995)
 * July 28 – Lawrence Gray, American actor (d. 1970)
 * July 29 – Isidor Isaac Rabi, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1968)
 * July 30 – Henry Moore, English sculptor (d. 1986)
 * July 31 – Ken Harris, American animator (d. 1982)
 * August 2 – Glenn Tryon, American actor, screenwriter, and film director (d. 1970)
 * August 5
 * Lewis R. Foster, American film director and screenwriter (d. 1974)
 * Kumbakonam Rajamanickam Pillai, Carnatic music violinist of Tamil Nadu, Southern India (d. 1970)
 * August 12
 * Kenneth Hawks, American film director (d. 1930)
 * Oskar Homolka, Austrian actor (d. 1978)
 * August 13 – Regis Toomey, American actor (d. 1991)
 * August 15 – Jan Brzechwa, Polish poet (d. 1966)
 * August 17 – Dewey Robinson, American actor (d. 1950)
 * August 18 – Lance Sharkey, Australian Communist Leader (d. 1967)
 * August 19 – Eleanor Boardman, American actress (d. 1991)
 * August 20
 * Leopold Infeld, Polish physicist (d. 1968)
 * Vilhelm Moberg, Swedish novelist and historian (d. 1973)
 * August 21 – Herbert Mundin, English actor (d. 1939)
 * August 25 – Van Nest Polglase, American art director and head of the design department at RKO Pictures (d. 1968)
 * August 26 – Peggy Guggenheim, American art collector (d. 1979)
 * August 29 – Preston Sturges, American director and writer (d. 1959)
 * August 30 – Shirley Booth, American actress (d. 1992)
 * September 1
 * Violet Carson, British actress (d. 1983).
 * Marilyn Miller, American actress, singer, and dancer (d. 1936)
 * September 2 – Arthur Young, English actor (d. 1959)
 * September 8 – Queenie Smith, American actress (d. 1978)
 * September 10
 * George Eldredge, American actor (d. 1977)
 * Bessie Love, American actress (d. 1986)
 * September 13 – Roger Désormière, French conductor (d. 1963)
 * September 16 – Baruch Lumet, Polish-born American actor (d. 1992)
 * September 19 – Giuseppe Saragat, former President of Italy (d. 1988)
 * September 22 – Katharine Alexander, American actress (d. 1981)
 * September 24 – Howard Walter Florey, Australian-born pharmacologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1968)
 * September 25 – Robert Brackman, American artist (d. 1980)
 * September 26 – George Gershwin, American composer (d. 1937)
 * September 29 – Trofim Lysenko, Russian biologist (d. 1976)
 * September 30
 * Renée Adorée, French actress (d. 1933)
 * Princess Charlotte of Monaco (d. 1977)

October–December

 * October 3– Morgan Farley, American actor (d. 1988)
 * October 6
 * Arthur G. Jones-Williams, British aviator (d. 1929)
 * Mitchell Leisen, American film director (d. 1972)
 * Clarence Williams, American jazz pianist and composer (d. 1965). Some sources give his year of birth as 1893.
 * October 7 – Joe Giard, American baseball player (d. 1956)
 * October 10
 * Lilly Daché, French milliner (d. 1989)
 * Marie-Pierre Kœnig, French general and politician (d. 1970)
 * October 15 – Boughera El Ouafi, Algerian athlete (d. 1959)
 * October 16 – William O. Douglas, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1980)
 * October 18
 * George Curzon, English actor (d. 1976)
 * Lotte Lenya, Austrian actress and singer (d. 1981)
 * October 22 – Dámaso Alonso, Spanish poet (d. 1990)
 * November 1 – Philip Ray, British actor (d. 1978)
 * November 4 – Joe Dougherty, first voice of Porky Pig (d. 1978)
 * November 8 – Marie Prevost, Canadian actress (d. 1937)
 * November 11– René Clair, French filmmaker, novelist, and non-fiction writer (d. 1981)
 * November 12 – Leon Štukelj, Slovene gymnast (d. 1999)
 * November 14 – Benjamin Fondane, né Wechsler, Romanian-French Symbolist poet, critic and existentialist philosopher (k. 1944)
 * November 17 – Maurice Journeau, French composer (d. 1999)
 * November 18 – Joris Ivens, Dutch director (d. 1989)
 * November 19 – Arthur R. von Hippel, German-born physicist (d. 2003)
 * November 21 – René Magritte, Belgian artist (d. 1967)
 * November 23– Bess Flowers, American actress (d. 1984)
 * November 24 – Liu Shaoqi, President of the People's Republic of China (d. 1969)
 * November 25 – Debaki Bose, Indian actor, director and writer (d. 1971)
 * November 26 – Karl Ziegler, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)
 * November 29
 * Rod La Rocque, American actor (d. 1969)
 * C. S. Lewis, British author (d. 1963)
 * November 30 – Firpo Marberry, American baseball pitcher (d. 1976)
 * December 2 – Indra Lal Roy, Indian World War I pilot (d. 1918)
 * December 3 – Monte Collins, American actor and screenwriter (d. 1951)
 * December 5 – Grace Moore, American opera singer and actress (d. 1947)
 * December 6 – Alfred Eisenstaedt, American photojournalist (d. 1995)
 * December 9
 * Emmett Kelly, American circus clown (d. 1979)
 * Clarine Seymour, American actress (d. 1920)
 * December 11 – Benno Mengele, Austrian electrical engineer (d. 1971)
 * December 14 – Lillian Randolph, American actress and singer (d. 1980)
 * December 19 – Zheng Zhenduo, Chinese author and translator (d. 1958)
 * December 20 – Irene Dunne, American actress (d. 1990)
 * December 24 – Baby Dodds, American jazz drummer (d. 1959)
 * December 27 – Hilda Vaughn, American actress (d. 1957)
 * December 30 – Umm Kulthum, Egyptian singer and actress (d. 1975)
 * December 31 – István Dobi, former Hungarian leader (d. 1968)

Date unknown

 * W. E. Butler, British occultist (d. 1978)
 * Maria Klenova, Russian marine geologist (d. 1976)
 * Andrés Soler, Mexican actor (d. 1969)
 * I. K. Taimni, Indian chemist (d. 1978)

January–June

 * January 3 – Lawrence Sullivan Ross, Confederate brigadier general, Texas governor, and president of Texas A&M University (b.1838)
 * January 14 – Lewis Carroll, British writer, mathematician (Alice in Wonderland) (b. 1832)
 * January 16 – Charles Pelham Villiers, longest-serving MP in the British House of Commons (b. 1802)
 * January 18 – Henry George Lidell, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford (b. 1811)
 * February 1 – Tsuboi Kōzō, Japanese admiral (b. 1843)
 * February 16 – Thomas Bracken, author of the official national anthem of New Zealand (God Defend New Zealand) (b. 1843)
 * March 1 – George Bruce Malleson, Indian officer and author (b. 1825)
 * March 6 – Andrei Alexandrovich Popov, Russian admiral (b. 1821)
 * March 10 – George Müller, Prussian evangelist and founder of the Ashley Down orphanage (b. 1805)
 * March 15 – Henry Bessemer, British engineer and inventor (b. 1813)
 * March 16 – Aubrey Beardsley, British artist (b. 1872)
 * March 18 – Matilda Joslyn Gage, American feminist (b. 1826)
 * March 27 – Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Indian university founder (b. 1817)
 * April 15 – Te Keepa Te Rangihiwinui, Maori military leader
 * April 18 – Gustave Moreau, French painter (b. 1826)
 * May 6 – Sotirios Sotiropoulos, Greek economist and politician (b. 1831)
 * May 19 – William Ewart Gladstone, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1809)
 * June 10 – Tuone Udaina, Croatian-Italian last speaker of the Dalmatian language (b. 1821)

July–December

 * July 1 – Siegfried Marcus, Austrian automobile pioneer (b. 1831)
 * July 5 – Richard Pankhurst, (b. 1834)
 * July 12 – Louis-François Richer Laflèche, Roman Catholic Bishop of Trois-Rivières, Native American missionary (b. 1818)
 * July 30 – Otto von Bismarck, German statesman (b. 1815)
 * August 8 – Eugène Boudin, French painter (b. 1824)
 * September 2 – Wilford Woodruff, fourth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (b. 1807)
 * September 5 – Sarah Emma Edmonds, Canadian nurse and spy (b. 1841)
 * September 9 – Stéphane Mallarmé, French poet (b. 1842)
 * September 10 – Empress Elisabeth of Austria, empress consort of Austria, queen consort of Hungary (assassinated) (b. 1837)
 * September 16 – Ramón Emeterio Betances, Puerto Rican politician, medical doctor and diplomat (b. 1827)
 * September 20 – Theodor Fontane, German writer (b. 1819)
 * September 26 – Fanny Davenport, American actress (b. 1850)
 * September 28 – Tan Sitong, Chinese revolutionary (executed) (b. 1865)
 * September 29 – Louise of Hesse-Kassel, German princess, Queen Consort of Christian IX of Denmark (b. 1817)
 * October 24 – Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, French painter (b. 1824)
 * November 2 – George Goyder, surveyor-general of South Australia (b. 1826)
 * November 20 – Sir John Fowler, British civil engineer (b. 1817)
 * December 24 – Charbel Makhluf, Lebanese monk (b. 1828)