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

Events

• 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 - American sugar planters overthrow the government of Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii
• February 1 - Thomas A. Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio (West Orange, New Jersey).
• February 21 - Thomas Edison received two U.S. patents. The first was 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
• 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 Columbian Exposition, opens to the public in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The first United States commemorative postage stamps were issued for the Exposition.
• May 9 - First public demonstration of Edison's 1 1/2" system of Kinetoscope at the Brooklyn Institute .
• June 6 - Marriage of Prince George, Duke of York and Mary of Teck.
• 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
• 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
• 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 enroute from Tallinn to Helsinki (hulk found July 2003 off Helsinki)
• 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 Columbian Exposition, closes.
• November 7 - Colorado women are granted the right to vote.

• New Zealand becomes first country in the world to grant women the vote.
• Global financial panic (Panic of 1893)
• Physicist Wilhelm Wien composes Wien's Law
• France conquers Vietnam.
• General strike in Belgium
• Milbank Penitentiary in Britain demolished
• US President Cleveland operated on in secret
• The Wengernalpbahn in Wengen, Switzerland (Canton of Bern) is opened.

Births

• 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, actor, musician (d. 1951)
• January 22 - Conrad Veidt, actor (d. 1943)
• February 3 - Gaston Julia, mathematician (Julia Sets) (d. 1978)
• February 10 - Jimmy Durante, actor, singer, comedian, vaudevillean (d. 1980)
• February 11 - Johan Alberts Dutch literary figure.
• February 12 - Omar Bradley, general (d. 1981)
• 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, artist/ceramist (d. 1998)
• March 26 - James Bryan Conant , chemist and politician (d. 1978)
• April 3 - Leslie Howard, actor (d. 1943)
• April 9 - Victor Gollancz, British publisher (d. 1967)
• April 23 - Allen Dulles, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (d. 1969)
• May 3 - Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, Georgian writer and public benefactor (d. 1975)
• May 27 - Hermann Dornemann, world's oldest man from November 19, 2004
• June 24 - Roy Oliver Disney, older brother and business partner of Walter Elias Disney (d. 1971)
• June 26 - Big Bill Broonzy (d. 1958)
• July 3 - Mississippi John Hurt (d. 1966)
• August 6 - Wright Patman, American politician (d. 1976)
• August 15 - Leslie Comrie, astronomer and computing pioneer (d. 1950)
• August 22 - Dorothy Parker, writer (d. 1967)
• August 30 - Huey Long, Louisiana governor and senator (d. 1935)
• September 13 - Larry Shields, jazz musician (d. 1953)
• October 1 - Marianne Brandt, industrial designer and Bauhaus participant (d. 1983)
• October 15 - King Carol II of Romania (d. 1953)
• November 8 - Clarence Williams, jazz musician (d. 1965)
• December 26 - Mao Zedong, Chinese leader (d. 1976)
• Clement Martyn Doke South African linguist (d. 1980)
• Berthold Bartosch Bohemian animator (d. 1968)
• Blind Blake influential blues singer (d. 1933)

Deaths

• January 2 - John Obadiah Westwood, British entomologist
• January 7 - Jožef Stefan, Slovene physicist, mathematician and poet (b. 1835)
• January 17 - Rutherford Birchard Hayes, 19th President of the United States
• January 23 - Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, United States Supreme Court justice
• February 20 - Pierre Gustave Toutant de Beauregard, Confederate general
• March 30 - Jane Sym-Mackenzie, First Lady of Canada
• June 21 - Amasa Leland Stanford, 8th Governor of California.
• October 10 - Lip Pike, baseball player
• Sir John Joseph Caldwell Abbott, Canadian politician