1893

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.

Quick Facts

1893 in various calendars
Gregorian calendar	1893 MDCCCXCIII
Ab urbe condita	2646
Armenian calendar	1342 ԹՎ ՌՅԽԲ
Assyrian calendar	6643
Baháʼí calendar	49–50
Balinese saka calendar	1814–1815
Bengali calendar	1299–1300
Berber calendar	2843
British Regnal year	56 Vict. 1 – 57 Vict. 1
Buddhist calendar	2437
Burmese calendar	1255
Byzantine calendar	7401–7402
Chinese calendar	壬辰年 (Water Dragon) 4590 or 4383 — to — 癸巳年 (Water Snake) 4591 or 4384
Coptic calendar	1609–1610
Discordian calendar	3059
Ethiopian calendar	1885–1886
Hebrew calendar	5653–5654
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1949–1950
- Shaka Samvat	1814–1815
- Kali Yuga	4993–4994
Holocene calendar	11893
Igbo calendar	893–894
Iranian calendar	1271–1272
Islamic calendar	1310–1311
Japanese calendar	Meiji 26 (明治２６年)
Javanese calendar	1822–1823
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 12 days
Korean calendar	4226
Minguo calendar	19 before ROC 民前19年
Nanakshahi calendar	425
Thai solar calendar	2435–2436
Tibetan calendar	阳水龙年 (male Water-Dragon) 2019 or 1638 or 866 — to — 阴水蛇年 (female Water-Snake) 2020 or 1639 or 867

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Events

January–March

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 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 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–June

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.^[1]
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 – The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland is formed.
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.^[2] 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.
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.
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.^[3]

July–September

July 1 – U.S. President Grover Cleveland is operated on in secret.
July 6 – 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.^[4] 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.
July 25 – The Corinth Canal is completed in Greece.
August 14 – The world's first driving licenses are introduced in France under the Paris Police Ordinance.^[5]
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 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).^[6]
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.
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 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.^[7]
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.^[8]
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.^[9]
October 23 – The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) is founded by Bulgarians, 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 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.^[10]
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.
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.

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.^[11]
By 1893 – 8,000 Chinese have arrived in Cuba.