| January 1 | Ellis Island becomes reception center for new immigrants |
| January 5 | 1st successful auroral photograph made |
| January 7 | Mine explosion kills 100, Krebs, Okla-blacks trying to help rescue white survivors, driven away with guns |
| January 11 | Hawaiian Historical Society founded |
| January 11 | Paul Gauguin marries a 13-year-old Tahitian girl |
| January 11 | William D McCoy of Indiana appointed U.S. minister to Liberia |
| January 15 | Basketball rules published in Triangle Magazine, Mass |
| January 20 | 1st basketball game played (Mass) |
| January 24 | Battle at Mengo, Uganda: French missionaries attack British missionaries |
| January 30 | Bobby Abel carries his bat for 132* for England in SCG Test |
| January 30 | Captain Lugard occupies Uganda's King Mwanga's hide out |
| February 1 | Mrs William Astor invites 400 guests to a grand ball at her mansion thus beginning use of "400" to describe socially elite |
| February 2 | Bottle cap with cork seal patented by William Painter (Baltimore) |
| February 2 | Johnny Briggs takes a hat-trick, England vs. Australia SCG |
| February 2 | Longest boxing match under modern rules; 77 rounds in Nameoki, Illinois between Harry Sharpe and Frank Crosby |
| February 3 | Russia closes down Yeshiva of Volozhin |
| February 16 | Opera "Werther," premieres in Vienna |
| February 22 | "Lady Windermere's Fan" by Oscar Wilde premieres at St. James (London) |
| February 22 | Manitoba Rugby Football Union forms |
| February 23 | 1st college student government forms at Bryn Mawr Penn |
| February 25 | James Barrie's "Walker London," premieres in London |
| February 29 | Britian and U.S. sign treaty on seal hunting in Bering Sea |
| March 3 | 1st cattle tuberculosis test in U.S. made, Villa Nova, Penn |
| March 11 | 1st public basketball game (Springfield, Massachuetts) |
| March 15 | 1st escalator patented by inventor Jesse W. Reno (New York City) |
| March 15 | New York State unveils automatic ballot booth (voting machine) |
| March 18 | Lord Stanley presents silver challenge cup for hockey (Stanley Cup) |
| March 19 | 3 brothers Hearne play in same Test Cricket England vs. South Africa (Cape Town) |
| April 12 | George C. Blickensderfer patents portable typewriter |
| April 15 | General Electric Company, forms and is incorporated in New York |
| April 17 | 1st Sunday NL baseball game, Reds beat Cards 5-1 |
| April 19 | Charles Duryea takes 1st American-made auto out for a spin (Mass) |
| April 21 | Black Longshoremen strike for higher wages in St. Louis Mo |
| April 28 | 1st performance of Antonin Dvorak's overture "Carneval" |
| April 29 | Charlie Reilly is baseball's 1st pinch hitter |
| May 1 | U.S. Quarantine Station opens on Angel Island, San Francisco Bay |
| May 11 | 18th Kentucky Derby: Lonnie Clayton aboard Azra wins in 2:41 |
| May 14 | Vitesse 1892 soccer team forms in Arnhem |
| May 19 | Charles Brady King invents pneumatic hammer |
| May 19 | National Society of Colonial Dames of America founded |
| May 20 | George Sampson patents clothes dryer |
| May 20 | Triple Alliance between Germany, Italy and Austria forms |
| May 21 | Ruggiero Leoncavallo's opera "Pagliacci," premieres in Milan |
| May 22 | Dr. Washington Sheffield invents toothpaste tube |
| May 28 | Sierra Club forms by John Muir for conservation of nature |
| June 4 | Oil City and Titusville Penn, destroyed by oil tank explosion; 130 die |
| June 4 | Sierra Club forms in San Francisco |
| June 7 | John J Doyle of Clev Spiders is 1st to pinch hit in a baseball game |
| June 7 | Republican convention in Minneapolis begins |
| June 8 | Homer A. Plessy refuses to go to segregated RR car (Plessy vs. Ferguson) |
| June 9 | 26th Belmont: W Hayward aboard Patron wins in 2:12 |
| June 10 | Wilbert Robinson sets record by going 7-for-7 in a 9-inning game |
| June 12 | Netherlands Society for Currency and Coin collecting forms |
| June 18 | Macademia nuts 1st planted in Hawaii |
| June 28 | Phillies tie club record of 16 straight victories |
| July 4 | James Keir Hardie chosen 1st socialist in British Lower house |
| July 6 | Dr. Jose Rizal forms League Filipina |
| July 6 | Striking steel workers in Homestead, Pennsylvania fire on scabs, killing 7 |
| July 8 | American Psychological Association organized, Worcester, Massacgysetts |
| July 10 | 1st concrete-paved street built, Bellefountaine, Ohio |
| July 11 | U.S. Patent Office says J. W. Swan, rather than Thomas Edison, invented the electric light carbon for the incandescent lamp |
| August 2 | Charles A. Wheeler patents a prototype of the escalator |
| August 4 | Queen Wilhelmina and Emma open Merwede Canal between Amsterdam-Rhine |
| August 4 | Sunday school teacher Lizzie Borden arrested in Fall River, Mass |
| August 13 | U.S. black newspaper "Afro-American" begins publishing from Baltimore |
| August 15 | 4th and last British government of Gladstone forms |
| August 17 | Russian/French generals Obruchev/Boisdeffre signs Duple Alliance |
| August 27 | New York City Metropolitan Opera House catches fire |
| September 7 | James Corbett KOs John Sullivan in 21 for heavyweight boxing title |
| September 8 | 1st appearance of "Pledge of Allegiance" (Youth's Companion) |
| September 9 | E E Barnard at Lick discovers Amalthea, 5th Jupiter moon |
| September 14 | AP Giannini marries Clorinda Cuneo |
| September 16 | Amsterdam swim club renamed "The Y" |
| September 26 | 1st public appearance of John Philip Sousa's band (NJ) |
| September 26 | Diamond Match Co patented book matches |
| September 27 | Book matches are patented by Diamond Match Company |
| October 1 | University of Chicago opens |
| October 5 | Dalton Gang ends in shoot-out in Coffeville, Kansas bank holdup |
| October 8 | Sergei Rachmaninoff 1st performs "Prelude in C-sharp-Minor" in Moscow |
| October 10 | Entire Hong Kong national cricket team, die in shipwreck off Taiwan |
| October 12 | Pledge of Allegiance 1st recited in public schools |
| October 18 | 1st commercial long-distance phone line opens (Chicago-NY) |
| November 2 | Paul Verlaine visits Netherlands |
| November 8 | Grover Cleveland (D) elected president |
| November 10 | 1st CRU championship game: Osgoode Hall defeats Montreal, 45-5 |
| November 12 | Allegheny Athletic Association beats Pitts Athletic CLub, 4-0 in football |
| November 12 | Pudge Heffelfinger receives $500, becomes 1st pro football player |
| November 23 | Battle of Lomani Congo: Belgian unit beats Arabs, 1000-3000 killed |
| November 23 | P de Coubertin launches plan for Modern Olympic Games |
| December 5 | Anti-semite Hermann Ahlwardt elected to Germany's Reichstag |
| December 16 | Commencement of 1st Sheffield Shield cricket game, SA vs. NSW |
| December 17 | Tsjaikovski's ballet "Casse-noisette," premieres in St. Petersburg |
| December 18 | Anton Bruckner's 8th Symphony, premieres |
| December 18 | "Nutcracker Suite," Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet, premieres |
| December 20 | Phileas Fogg completes around world trip, according to Verne |
| December 20 | Pneumatic automobile tire patented, Syracuse, New York |
| December 26 | Opera "Cristoforo Colombo" is produced (La Scala) |
| December 27 | Foundation Stone of Cathedral of St. John laid (New York City) |
| December 27 | N C Biddle beats Livingston 4-0 in 1st black college football game |
| December 30 | Dr. Miles V Lynk, physician, publishes 1st Black medical journal |
