1893 (MDCCCXCIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar).

Events

January-June

• January 1 - Japan accepts the Gregorian calendar
• January 2 - Introduction by Webb C. Ball of the General Railroad Timepiece Standards in North America: Railroad chronometers
• January 13 - The Independent Labour Party of the UK has its first meeting.
• January 17 - Intervention by the U.S. Marines in Hawaii, resulting in overthrow of government of Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii
• January 21 - First "performance" of the Cherry Sisters in Marion, Iowa. Their neighbors are uncritical and the sisters decide to launch a tour
• February 1 - Thomas A. Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio (West Orange, New Jersey).
• February 21 - Thomas Edison receives two U.S. patents. The first is for a "Cut Out for Incandescent Electric Lamps" and another for a "Stop Device" (No. 491,992-3). Also No. 492,150 for "Process of Coating Conductors for Incandescent Lamps."
• February 23 - Rudolf Diesel receives a patent for the diesel engine
• March 4 - End of term for President of the United States Benjamin Harrison. He is succeeded by Stephen Grover Cleveland.
• March 10 - Côte d'Ivoire becomes a French colony
• March 20 - In Belgium, Adam Worth is sentenced for seven year for robbery (he is released 1897)
• April 8 - 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, Illinois, USA. The first United States commemorative postage stamps were issued for the Exposition.
• May 5 - Panic of 1893: Crash on the New York Stock Exchange starts a depression.
• May 9 - First public demonstration of Edison's 1½ inch system of Kinetoscope at the Brooklyn Institute.
• May 10 - The United States Supreme Court legally declares the tomato to be a vegetable.
• May 24 - The Niagara Falls Park and River Railway opens.
• June 6 - Marriage of Prince George, Duke of York and Mary of Teck.
• June 7 Gandhi's first act of civil disobedience.
• June 17 Gold found in Kalgoorlie Western Australia
• June 22 - Flagship Victoria of the British Mediterranean Fleet collides with Camperdown and sinks in 10 minutes - vice-admiral Sir George Tryon goes down with it
• June 27 - NYSE crashes

July-December

• July 6 - The small town of Pomeroy, Iowa was nearly destroyed by a tornado. Seventy-one people were killed and two hundred were injured.
• July 11 - Kokichi Mikimoto develops the method to achieve cultured pearls.
• July 12 - Frederick Jackson Turner gives his famous lecture entitled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" before the American Historical Association in Chicago. July 12 also witnesses the formation of Dundee FC- the great Scottish football club.
• August 27 - The Sea Islands Hurricane hits Savannah, Charleston and the Sea Islands; 1000-2000 dead.
• September 11 - Opening meeting of the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.
• September 19 - Russian ironclad Rusalka disappears in a storm en route from Tallinn to Helsinki (hulk found July 2003 off Helsinki)
• September 23 - First public mention of the Bahá'í Faith in the United States at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.
• September 27 - Closing meeting of the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.
• October 10 - First car number plates in Paris, France
• 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.

Exact month/day of event unknown

• New Zealand becomes first country in the world to grant women the vote.
• American Council on Alcohol Problems established.
• Global financial panic (Panic of 1893)
• Physicist Wilhelm Wien formulatesWien's displacement law
• France conquers Vietnam.
• General strike in Belgium
• American Temperance University opened.
• Milbank Penitentiary in Britain demolished
• US President Cleveland operated on in secret
• The Wengernalpbahn in Wengen, Switzerland (Canton of Bern) is opened.
• Athletic Club Královské Vinohrady is founded. Later the team was renamed to Sparta Prague
• Anti-Saloon League established in U.S. to promote temperance movement
• Committee of Fifty for the Study of the Liquor Problem established.
• Adalbert Goeringer invented a compass to measure the Golden Section.
• The Episcopal School of Texas founded.
• Colored High becomes the first African American high school in Houston, TX, its name is later changed to Booker T. Washington High School

Births

January

• January 5 - Paramahansa Yogananda, Indian guru (d. 1952)
• January 12 - Hermann Göring, Nazi official (d. 1946)
• January 12 - Alfred Rosenberg, 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 Sun Yat-sen(孫逸仙, 孫文) (d. 1981)

February

• 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 21 - Andrés Segovia, Spanish guitarist (d. 1987)

March

• March 1 - Mercedes de Acosta, American poet, playwright, costume designer, and socialite (d. 1968)
• March 3 - Beatrice Wood, American artist and ceramicist (d. 1998)
• March 3 - Ivon Hitchens, English painter (d. 1979)
• March 18 - Wilfred Owen, English soldier and poet (d. 1918)
• March 26 - Palmiro Togliatti, Italian communist leader (d. 1964)

April

• April 3 - Leslie Howard, English actor (d. 1943)
• April 9 - Victor Gollancz, British publisher (d. 1967)
• April 12 - Robert Harron, American actor (d. 1920)
• April 23 - Allen Dulles, American Central Intelligence Agency director (d. 1969)
• April 29 - Harold C. Urey, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1981)

May

• May 3 - Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, Georgian writer and public benefactor (d. 1975)
• May 26 - Norma Talmadge, American actress (d. 1957)
• May 23 - Ulysses S. Grant IV, American geologist and paleontologist (d. 1977)

June

• June 14 - Siggie Nordstrom, model, actress, entertainer, socialite and lead singer of The Nordstrom Sisters (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)

July

• July 3 - Mississippi John Hurt, American musician (d. 1966)
• July 9 - George Geary, English cricketer (d. 1981)
• July 25 - Dorothy Dickson, American-born actress and socialite (d. 1995)

August

• August 6 - Wright Patman, American politician (d. 1976)
• August 15 - Leslie Comrie, New Zealand astronomer and computing pioneer (d. 1950)
• August 22 - Dorothy Parker, American writer (d. 1967)
• August 22 - 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

• September 13 - Larry Shields, American musician (d. 1953)
• September 16 - Albert Szent-Györgyi, Hungarian physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1986)

October

• 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 18 - Georges Ohsawa, Japanese founder of Macrobiotics (d. 1966)

November

• 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)
• November 8 - Prajadhipok, Rama VII, king of Thailand (d. 1941)

December

• December 24 - Ruth Chatterton, American actress (d. 1961)
• December 26 - Mao Zedong, Chinese leader (d. 1976)

Exact month/day of birth unknown

• Clement Martyn Doke, South African linguist (d. 1980)
• Berthold Bartosch, Bohemian animator (d. 1968)

Deaths

• January 2 - John Obadiah Westwood, British entomologist
• January 7 - Jožef Stefan, Slovenian physicist, mathematician, and poet (b. 1835)
• January 17 - Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th President of the United States
• January 23 - Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, U.S. Supreme Court justice
• February 1 - George Henry Sanderson, Mayor of San Francisco
• February 20 - P.G.T. Beauregard, American Confederate general
• March 30 - Jane Sym-Mackenzie, second wife of Canada's second prime minister
• June 21 - Amasa Leland Stanford, Governor of California
• June 23 - Sir Theophilus Shepstone, South African statesman (b. 1817)
• October 8 - John Willis Menard African-American Politician (b. 1838)
• October 10 - Lip Pike, baseball player
• October 18 - Charles Gounod, French composer (b. 1818)
• October 30 - Sir John Joseph Caldwell Abbott, Canadian politician

1893

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