Events of 1893

• 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 UK has its first meeting.
• January 17 – The U.S. Marines intervene in Hawaii, resulting in overthrow of the government of Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii.
• January 21 – The Cherry Sisters first perform in Marion, Iowa.

• February 1 – Thomas A. 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.

• March 4 – President of the United States Benjamin Harrison is succeeded by Stephen Grover Cleveland.
• March 10 – Côte d'Ivoire 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 8 – The first recorded college basketball game occurs in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania between the Geneva College Covenanters and the New Brighton YMCA.

• 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 – The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland is formed.

• June 6 – Prince George, Duke of York 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 22 – The flagship Victoria of the British Mediterranean Fleet collides with Camperdown and sinks in 10 minutes; Vice-admiral Sir George Tryon goes down with his ship.

July–September

• July 6 – The small town of Pomeroy, Iowa is nearly destroyed by a tornado; 71 people are killed and 200 injured.
• July 11 – 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.
  • The Dundee FC, a Scottish football club, is formed.

• August 27 – The Sea Islands Hurricane hits Savannah, Charleston, and the Sea Islands, killing 1,000–2,000.

• September 7 – The Genoa Cricket & Athletic Club, the oldest Italian football club, is formed.
• September 7 – Under the pressure of a general strike, the Belgian parliament accepts a proposal to accept general multiple suffrage.
• September 11 – The World Parliament of Religions in Chicago opens its first meeting.
• September 11 – 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 30 – The 1893 World's Fair, also known as the World's Columbian Exposition, closes.

• November – In the United Kingdom, the Local Government Act 1894 is read for the second time in the House of Commons.
• November 7 – Colorado women are granted the right to vote.
• November 15 – The FC Basel Club is founded.

• December 5 – Plural voting is abolished in New South Wales.
• December – Carl Anton Larsen was the first man to ski in Antarctica.

Undated

• 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.
• Physicist Wilhelm Wien formulates Wien's displacement law.
• France conquers Laos.
• A general strike occurs in Belgium.
• American Temperance University is opened.
• Millbank Prison in London is demolished.
• U.S. President Cleveland is operated on in secret.
• In the U.S., the National Sculpture Society (NSS) is founded.
• The Football Club Dulwich Hamlet is founded.
• The Athletic Club Královské Vinohrady, later Sparta Prague, is founded.
• T.M.I.: The Episcopal School of Texas is founded.
• Colored High becomes the first African American high school in Houston, TX; its name is later changed to Booker T. Washington High School.
• The Ardabil Carpet is brought to London.
• Evergreen Park, Illinois is founded.
• Sudbury, Ontario, Canada is incorporated as a town.
• St. Hilda's College, Oxford is founded.
• William Gladstone introduces a bill to give Ireland self-government but it fails to pass.
• 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.

Births

January–June

• January 5 – Paramahansa Yogananda, Indian guru (d. 1952)
• January 12
  • 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 – Conrad Veidt, German actor (d. 1943)
• January 27 – Soong Ching-ling (宋慶齡), one of the Soong sisters, wife of Chinese president Sun Yat-sen(孫逸仙, 孫文) (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)
• February 16 – Katharine Cornell, American actress (d. 1974)
• February 19 – Sir Cedric Hardwicke, English actor (d. 1964)
• February 21 – Andrés Segovia, Spanish guitarist (d. 1987)
• 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 Gag, American children's author and artist (d. 1946)
• March 18 – Wilfred Owen, English soldier and poet (d. 1918)
• March 26 – Palmiro Togliatti, Italian communist leader (d. 1964)
• April 1 – Cicely Courtneidge, British actress (d. 1980)
• April 3 – Leslie Howard, English actor (d. 1943)
• April 9 – Victor Gollancz, British publisher (d. 1967)
• April 9 – Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan, Great Indian Historian, Writer, Scholar (d. 1963)
• April 12 – Robert Harron, American actor (d. 1920)
• April 18 – Georges Boulanger, Romanian violinist (d. 1958)
• April 20
  • Harold Lloyd, American actor (d. 1971)
  • Edna Parker, supercentenarian (d. 2008)
• April 23 – Allen Dulles, American Central Intelligence Agency director (d. 1969)
• April 29 – Harold C. Urey, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1981)
• 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 26 – Norma Talmadge, American actress (d. 1957)
• May 23 – Ulysses S. Grant IV, American geologist and paleontologist (d. 1977)
• 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)
• June 26 – Big Bill Broonzy, American blues singer and composer (d. 1958)
• June 30 – Walter Ulbricht, German Communist Politician (d. 1973)

July–December

• July 3 – Mississippi John Hurt, American musician (d. 1966)
• July 4 – Norman Washington Manley, Jamaican statesman (d. 1969)
• July 9 – George Geary, English cricketer (d. 1981)
• July 20 – George Llewelyn Davies, inspiration for Peter Pan (d. 1915)
• July 25 – Dorothy Dickson, American-born actress and socialite (d. 1995)
• July 30 – Fatima Jinnah, Pakistani Mother of the Nation (d. 1967)
• August 6 – Wright Patman, American politician (d. 1976)
• 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 22
  • Dorothy Parker, American writer (d. 1967)
  • Wilfred Kitching, the 7th General of The Salvation Army (d. 1977)
• August 25 – Henry Trendley Dean, American dental researcher (d. 1962)
• August 30 – Huey Long, Louisiana governor and senator (d. 1935)
• September 10 – Maria de Jesus, 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 –
  • 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 1 – Marianne Brandt, German industrial designer (d. 1983)
• 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 – Georges Ohsawa, Japanese founder of Macrobiotics (d. 1966)
• October 23 – Gummo Marx, American comedian and actor (d. 1977)
• November 3 – Edward Adelbert Doisy, American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1986)
• November 8
  • Clarence Williams, American jazz musician (d. 1965)
  • Prajadhipok, Rama VII, king of Thailand (d. 1941)
• November 10 – John P. Marquand, American novelist (d. 1960)
• 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 – Clement Martyn Doke, South African linguist (d. 1980)

Deaths

January–June

• January 2 – John Obadiah Westwood, British entomologist (b. 1805)
• January 7 – Jožef Stefan, Slovenian physicist, mathematician, and poet (b. 1835)
• 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)
• February 1 – George Henry Sanderson, Mayor of San Francisco (b. 1824)
• 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)
• March 18 – Bandō Kakitsu I, Japanese kabuki actor (b. 1847)
• March 30 – Jane Sym-Mackenzie, second wife of Canada's second prime minister (b. 1825)
• April 8 – August Czartoryski, Polish prince (b. 1858)
• June 14 – Jakob Frohschammer, theologian and philosopher (b. 1821)
• June 19 – William Starke Rosecrans, California congressman and Register of the U.S. Treasury (b. 1819)
• June 21 – Amasa Leland Stanford, Governor of California (b. 1824)
• June 23 – Sir Theophilus Shepstone, South African statesman (b. 1817)

July–December

• July 2 – Georgiana Drew Barrymore, actress-comedienne (b. 1856)
• 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)
• 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 18 – Charles Gounod, French composer (b. 1818)
• October 22 – Duleep Singh, ruler of Punjab (b. 1838)
• October 30 – Sir John Joseph Caldwell Abbott, Canadian politician (b. 1821)
• November 6 – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer (b. 1840)
• November 22 – James Calder, 5th President of Pennsylvania State University (b. 1826)