Charles Fort: A Fortean Chronology, 1893.

The year 1893 (MDCCCXCIII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar.

January

  • January 2: Webb C. Ball introduces railroad chronometers, which become the general railroad timepiece standards in North America.
  • January 13: The Independent Labour Party of the UK has its first meeting.
  • January 17: The U.S. Marines intervene in Hawaii, resulting in overthrow of the government of Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii.
  • January 18: Fall of small, friable, vesicular masses, from the size of a pea to that of a walnut, at Lobau, Austria. (Books70)

 

February

  • February 1: Thomas A. Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio in West Orange, New Jersey.
  • February 19: The SS Naronic is believed to have sunk due to a storm.
  • February 23: Rudolf Diesel receives a patent for the diesel engine.
  • February 24: The watch of HMS Caroline, at 10pm, sailing between Shanghai and Japan report "some unusual lights" in the sky. (Books297)

 

March

  • March 4: President of the United States Benjamin Harrison is succeeded by Stephen Grover Cleveland.
  • March 7: A luminous object shaped like a pear was seen in the sky of Val-de-la-Haye, France. (Books485) 
  • March 10: Côte d'Ivoire 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 1: A shaft of light seen projecting from the moon, by M. de Mores, in the Azores. (Books466) 
  • April 8: The first recorded college basketball game occurs in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania between the Geneva College Covenanters and the New Brighton YMCA.
  • April 10: Morning, several men are rushed to a Brooklyn hospital from different parts of the city. Several accidents, quick succession, seemingly all had fallen from high places or been struck by objects falling from high places! (Books858) 

 

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, USA. The first United States commemorative postage stamps are issued for the Exposition.
  • May 5: Panic of 1893, A crash on the New York Stock Exchange starts a depression.
  • May 7: Miss M. Scott walking near St. Boswells, Roxburghshire, watches as figure dressed in black, like a glergyman, disappears "in an instant." (Books697) 
  • May 9: Edison's 1½ inch system of Kinetoscope is first demonstrated in public at the Brooklyn Institute.
  • May 10: The United States Supreme Court legally declares the tomato to be a vegetable.

 

June

  • June 6: Prince George, Duke of York marries Mary of Teck.
  • June 7: Gandhi commits his first act of civil disobedience in India.
  • June 17: Gold is found in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.
  • June 20: The Wengernalpbahn railway in Wengen, Switzerland (Canton of Bern) is opened.
  • June 22: The flagship Victoria of the British Mediterranean Fleet collides with Camperdown and sinks in 10 minutes; Vice-admiral Sir George Tryon goes down with his ship.

 

July

  • July 6: The small town of Pomeroy, Iowa is nearly destroyed by a tornado; 71 people are killed and 200 injured.
  • July 6: An attack by a "mysterious animal" in the Orel Government, South of Moscow. (Books647)
  • July 9: An attack on a woman by a "mysterious animal" in the Orel Government, South of Moscow. A boy of 10 is killed and devoured. (Books647)  
  • July 11: Kokichi Mikimoto, in Japan, develops the method to seed and grow cultured pearls.
  • July 11: A woman is killed  by an undescribed beast near Trosna, South of Moscow. (Books647)
  • July 14: A woman beats off an attack by a "mysterious animal" in the Orel Government, South of Moscow. Later that day a peasant girl is attacked (Books648)
  • July 24: Four women are attacked and one of them killed by a beast described as being "long, with a blunt muzzle, and round, standing-up ears, with a long, smooth, hanging tail", in the Orel Government, South of Moscow. (Books648)   

 

August

  • August 17: Between Ramsgate and Ostend a series of distinct detonations are heard. (Books472)
  • August 27: The Sea Islands Hurricane hits Savannah, Charleston, and the Sea Islands, killing 1,000-2,000.

 

September

  • September 5: At Middlekirk, Scotland loud sounds of remarkable intensity. (Books472)
  • September 7: The Genoa Cricket & Athletic Club, the oldest Italian football club, is formed.
  • September 7: Under the pressure of a general strike, the Belgian parliament accepts a proposal to accept general multiple suffrage.
  • September 8: On the English Channel, near Dover, an explosive sound is heard. (Books472) 
  • September 11: The World Parliament of Religions in Chicago opens its first meeting.
  • September 19: New Zealand becomes the first country in the world to grant women the right to vote.
  • September 19: The Russian ironclad Rusalka disappears in a storm en route from Tallinn to Helsinki; her hulk is eventually discovered in July 2003, off Helsinki.
  • September 21: Brothers Charles and Frank Duryea drive the first gasoline-powered motorcar in America on public roads in Springfield, Massachusetts.
  • September 23: The Bahá'í Faith is first publicly mentioned in the United States at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.
  • September 25: M. Gaboreau, in Paris, watches as a shaft of light projecting from the moon. (Books466) 

 

October

  • October 10: The first car number plates appear in Paris, France.
  • October 30: The 1893 World's Fair, also known as the World's Columbian Exposition, closes.

 

November

  • In the United Kingdom, the Local Government Act 1894 is read for the second time in the House of Commons.
  • November 2: A loud sound was heard at a place ten miles northeast of Worcester; no shock was felt. (Books476) 
  • November 7: Colorado women are granted the right to vote.

 

December

  • December 5: Plural voting is abolished in New South Wales.
  • December 6: Lumps of ice, four pounds in weight, fall out of a Texan sky. (Books185)
  • December 20: A luminous body pases overhead, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. (Books275)