1893 (MDCCCXCIII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar, the 1893rd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 893rd year of the 2nd millennium, the 93rd year of the 19th century, and the 4th year of the 1890s decade. As of the start of 1893, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
Contents
Events
January
January 2 – Webb C. Ball introduces railroad chronometers, which become the general railroad timepiece standards in North America.
January 6 – The Washington National Cathedral is chartered by Congress; the charter is signed by President Benjamin Harrison.
January 13
The Independent Labour Party of the United Kingdom has its first meeting.
U.S. Marines from the USS Boston land in Honolulu, Hawaii, to prevent the queen from abrogating the Bayonet Constitution.
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 Tati Concessions Land, formerly part of Matabeleland, is formally annexed to the Bechuanaland Protectorate (modern-day Botswana).
February
February 1 – Thomas Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio in West Orange, New Jersey.
February 11–19 – White Star Line cargo liner SS Naronic sinks without a trace in heavy seas on the Liverpool–New York transatlantic passage.
February 23 – Rudolf Diesel receives a patent for the diesel engine.
February 24 – The 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 the time, is launched.
March
March 6 – The Liverpool Overhead Railway opens with 2-car electric multiple units, the first to operate in the world.
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
April 1 – The rank of Chief Petty Officer is established in the United States Navy.
April 6 – The iconic Salt Lake 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
Belgian general strike of 1893: Riots erupt in Mons; the day after, the Belgian Parliament approves universal male suffrage.
The Alpha Xi Delta Sorority is founded at Lombard College in Galesburg, Illinois.
May
May 1 – The 1893 World's Fair, also known as the World's Columbian Exposition, opens to the public in Chicago, Illinois. The first United States commemorative postage stamps are issued for the event.
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 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 develop a deeper experience of such activities.
June 4 – The Anti-Saloon League is incorporated, originally as a state organization, in Oberlin, Ohio. On December 18, 1895, it becomes a nationwide organization. The same year, the American Council on Alcohol Problems is established, along with the Committee of Fifty for the Study of the Liquor Problem.
May – The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland is formed.
June
June 15 – 1893 German federal election: Small anti-Semitic parties secure 2.9% of the vote.
June 17 – Gold is found in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.
June 20
The Wengernalpbahn railway in Wengen, Switzerland (Canton of Bern) is opened.
Lizzie Borden is acquitted of the axe murder of 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.
June 29 – Unveiling of the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain at Piccadilly Circus in London with its statue of Anteros.
July
July 1 – U.S. President Grover Cleveland is operated on in secret.
June 6
Wedding of Prince George, Duke of York, and Princess Mary of Teck: the future King George V of the United Kingdom marries at St James's Palace in London.
The small town of Pomeroy, Iowa, is nearly destroyed by a tornado; 71 people are killed and 200 injured.
July 11
Liberal general and politician José Santos Zelaya leads a successful revolt in Nicaragua.
Kōkichi Mikimoto, in Japan, develops the method to seed and grow cultured pearls.
July 13
Paknam Incident: Two French Navy ships are fired upon by Siamese cannons stationed at the Paknam Fort, that guards the Chao Phraya River. Three months later, Siam is forced to cede modern-day Laos to France.
Frederick Jackson Turner gives a lecture titled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" before the American Historical Association in Chicago.
Scottish Association football club Dundee F.C. is formed.
August
6 August – The Corinth Canal is completed in Greece.
August 14 – The world's first driving licenses are introduced in France under the Paris Police Ordinance.
August 15 – The 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, Georgia, Charleston, South Carolina, and the Sea Islands, killing 1,000–2,000.
September
September 1 – William Ewart Gladstone's Government of Ireland Bill 1893, intended to give Ireland self-government, is rejected by the U.K. Parliament.
September 7
Under pressure of a general strike, the Belgian Federal Parliament enacts general multiple suffrage.
Russian monitor Rusalka sinks in a storm in the Gulf of Finland, with the loss of all 177 crew; her hulk is eventually discovered in 2003 off Helsinki.
Genoa Cricket & Athletic Club, the oldest Italian Association football club, is formed.
September 11 – The World Parliament of Religions opens as an adjunct to the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago; Bengali Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda receives a standing ovation for his address in response to his welcoming.
September 12 – American Temperance University begins classes in Harriman, Tennessee (it closes after 15 years, in May 1908).
September 16 – Settlers make a land run for prime land in the Cherokee Strip in Oklahoma.
September 19
New Zealand becomes the first country in the world to grant women's suffrage.
Swami Vivekananda delivers an inspiring paper at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.
September 21 – Brothers Charles and Frank Duryea drive the first gasoline-powered motorcar in America, on public roads in Springfield, Massachusetts.
September 23 – The Baháʼí Faith is first publicly mentioned in the United States, at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.
October
October 10 – The first car number plates appear in Paris, France.
October 13
The first students enter St Hilda's College, Oxford, England, founded for women by Dorothea Beale.
The Franco-Siamese Treaty of 1893 is signed, as the Kingdom of Siam cedes all of its territories east of the Mekong River to France, creating the territory of Laos.
October 14 – A devastating levee collapse, flash flood and landslide hit and damage around Kyushu Island, Shikoku Island and western Honshū in Japan, due to a strong typhoon wind; an official document reports that 2,044 people perish.
October 16 – American sisters Patty Hill and Mildred J. Hill copyright their book Song Stories for the Kindergarten including "Good Morning to All". The melody, by Mildred Hill, is later adapted, without authorization, by Robert H. Coleman as "Good Morning to You!", with the second stanza containing the words to "Happy Birthday to You", leading to a successful copyright lawsuit by the Hill sisters in 1934.
October 23 – The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) is founded 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
November 1 – First Matabele War: Battle of Bembezi, British South Africa Company defeats an assault by the Matabele.
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 Association football club is founded in Switzerland.
November 16 – Athletic club Královské Vinohrady, later Sparta Prague, is founded.
November 26 – Arthur Conan Doyle's story "The Adventure of the Final Problem", published in the December dated issue of The Strand Magazine and serialized in Sunday newspapers worldwide, surprises the reading public by revealing that his popular character Sherlock Holmes had apparently died at the Reichenbach Falls on May 4, 1891.
December
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, conducted by the composer, to immediate acclaim.
December 20 – Evergreen Park, Illinois, is incorporated.
December
Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson begins serialization in The Century Magazine (U.S.)
Carl Anton Larsen becomes the first man to ski in Antarctica.
Date unknown
The first recumbent bicycle, the Fautenil Vélociped, is made in France.
Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, is incorporated as a town.
German physicist Wilhelm Wien formulates Wien's displacement law.
TMI Episcopal is founded in San Antonio as "The West Texas School for Boys", quickly changed to "West Texas Military Academy", by Bishop James S. Johnston.
Booker T. Washington High School (Houston) is founded as "Colored High", the first African-American high school in Houston, Texas.
A 16th century Ardabil Carpet from Persia enters the collection of the South Kensington Museum in London.
American pharmacist Caleb Bradham invents the recipe for what later becomes Pepsi. He originally sells it as 'Brad's Drink' at his pharmacy in New Bern, North Carolina.
The Girls' Brigade is founded in Dublin, Ireland, origin of the international Christian youth organisation.
By 1893 – 8,000 Chinese have arrived in Cuba.
Births
January–March
January 1 – Minoru Sasaki, Japanese general (d. 1961)
January 5 – Paramahansa Yogananda, Indian guru (d. 1952)
January 10 – Vicente Huidobro, Chilean poet (d. 1948)
January 12
Hermann Göring, German Nazi official (suicide 1946)
Alfred Rosenberg, German Nazi official (executed 1946)
January 13 – Roy Cazaly, Australian rules footballer (d. 1963)
January 15 – Ivor Novello, Welsh actor, musician (d. 1951)
January 22
Ilya Denisov, Russian Greek-Catholic priest (d. 1971)
Conrad Veidt, German actor (d. 1943)
Frankie Yale, American gangster (k. 1928)
January 27 – Soong Ching-ling, one of the Soong sisters, wife of Chinese president Sun Yat-sen (d. 1981)
January 28 – Catherine Caradja, Romanian aristocrat, philanthropist (d. 1993)
February 3 – Gaston Julia, French mathematician (d. 1978)
February 9 – Georgios Athanasiadis-Novas, Prime Minister of Greece (d. 1987)
February 10
Jimmy Durante, American actor, singer and comedian (d. 1980)
April–June
April 1 – Cicely Courtneidge, British actress (d. 1980)
April 3 – Leslie Howard, English actor (d. 1943)
April 5 – Irena Káňová, Slovak politician (d. 1963)
April 9
Victor Gollancz, British publisher (d. 1967)
Rahul Sankrityayan, Indian historian, writer, scholar (d. 1963)
April 11 – Dean Acheson, 51st United States Secretary of State (d. 1971)
April 12 – Robert Harron, American actor (d. 1920)
April 20
Harold Lloyd, American actor (d. 1971)
Joan Miró, Spanish painter, sculptor (d. 1983)
Edna Parker, American supercentenarian (d. 2008)
April 23 – Allen Dulles, American Central Intelligence Agency director (d. 1969)
April 29 – Harold Urey, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1981)
May 1 – Nestor Lakoba, Abkhaz communist leader (d. 1936)
May 3 – Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, Georgian writer, public benefactor (d. 1975)
May 8 – Francis Ouimet, American golfer, businessman (d. 1967)
May 16 – Clement Martyn Doke, South African linguist (d. 1980)
July–September
July 1 – Mario de Bernardi, Italian aviator (d. 1959)
July 4 – Norman Manley, Jamaican statesman (d. 1969)
July 9
George Geary, English cricketer (d. 1981)
Dorothy Thompson, American journalist and radio commentator (d. 1961)
July 11 – Edward Stinson, American aviator, aircraft manufacturer (d. 1932)
July 12 – Ernest Cadine, French weightlifter (d. 1978)
July 18 – Richard Dix, American actor (d. 1949)
July 20
Arno von Lenski, German military officer, general (d. 1986)
George Llewelyn Davies, British inspiration for Peter Pan (killed in action 1915)
July 22 – Karl Menninger, American psychiatrist (d. 1990)
July 28 – Rued Langgaard, Danish composer, 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)
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, photographer (d. 1945)
October 14 – Lillian Gish, American actress (d. 1993)
October 15 – King Carol II of Romania (d. 1953)
October 18
Sidney Holland, 25th Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1961)
George Ohsawa, Japanese founder of Macrobiotics (d. 1966)
October 24 – Kurt Huber, German university professor, member of the White Rose resistance group in Nazi Germany (d. 1943)
October 26 – Oliver P. Smith, American general (d. 1977)
November 2 – Victor Crutchley, British admiral (d. 1986)
November 5 – Raymond Loewy, French-born American industrial designer (d. 1986)
November 8 – Prajadhipok, Rama VII, King of Siam (d. 1941)
November 10 – John P. Marquand, American novelist (d. 1960)
November 12 – Leonard F. Wing, American general, politician (d. 1945)
November 13 – Edward Adelbert Doisy, American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1986)
Deaths
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, U.S. Senator, and U.S. Secretary of State (b. 1830)
February 1 – George Henry Sanderson, Mayor of San Francisco (b. 1824)
February 4 – Concepción Arenal, Spanish feminist writer, activist (b. 1820)
February 8 – Jennie Casseday, American philanthropist (b. 1840)
February 10 – Henry Churchill de Mille, American playwright, (b.1853)
February 13 – Ignacio Manuel Altamirano, first modern Mexican novelist (Clemencia) and (El Zarco) (b. 1834)
February 17 – Sir Arthur Cumming, British admiral (b. 1817)
February 18
Serranus Clinton Hastings, American politician (b. 1814)
King George Tupou I of Tonga (b. 1797)
July–December
July 2 – Georgiana Drew, American actress, comedian (b. 1856)
July 6 – Guy de Maupassant, French writer (b. 1850)
July 16 – Antonio Ghislanzoni, Italian politician, 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 16 – Jean-Martin Charcot, French neurologist (b. 1825)
August 20 – Baron Alexander Wassilko von Serecki, Governor of the Duchy of Bucovina, member of the Herrenhaus (b. 1827)
August 31 – Lucy Hamilton Hooper, American writer and editor (b. 1835)
September 9 – Friedrich Traugott Kützing, German pharmacist, botanist and phycologist (b. 1807)
September 28 – Bella French Swisher, American writer, editor, and publisher (b. 1837)
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, politician, and 1st president of the Third Republic (1875-1879) (b. 1808)
Date unknown
Margaret Fox, American spiritualist medium (b. 1833)