1894

1894 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar).

Events

• January 7 – W.K. Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film.
• January 8 – A fire at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago causes a good deal of damage.
• January 9 – New England Telephone and Telegraph installs the first battery-operated telephone switchboard (Lexington, Massachusetts).
• February 15 – 04:51 GMT, French anarchist Martial Boudin attempts to destroy the Royal Greenwich Observatory, London, England with a bomb.
• March 1 – Thomas McGreevy, Canadian politician and contractor, is released from prison after serving time for defrauding the government
• March 12 – For the first time Coca-Cola is sold in bottles.
• March 25 – Coxey's Army, the first significant American protest march, departs Massillon, Ohio for Washington D.C.
• May – outbreak of bubonic plague in the Tai Ping Shan area of Hong Kong. The disease killed a total of 2,552 people in the territory that year
• May 1 – Coxey's Army arrives in Washington D.C.
• May 11 – Pullman Strike: Three thousand Pullman Palace Car Company workers go on a "wildcat" (without union approval) strike in Illinois.
• May 14 – Meteor shower in Southern France
• June 23 – International Olympic Committee is founded at the Sorbonne, Paris, at the initiative of Baron Pierre de Coubertin.
• July 4 – The short-lived Republic of Hawaii is proclaimed by Sanford B. Dole.
• August 1 – Declaration of war between the Qing Empire of China and the Empire of Japan, over their rival claims of influence on their common ally, the Joseon Dynasty of Korea. The event marks the start of the first Sino-Japanese War.
• September 1 – Great Hinckley Fire: A forest fire in Hinckley, Minnesota kills more than 400 people.
• September 4 – In New York City, 12,000 tailors strike against sweatshop working conditions.
• October 15  – Alfred Dreyfus is arrested for spying – Dreyfus affair begins
• October 20 (O.S.) – November 1 (N.S.) – Russian Tsar Alexander III dies and is succeeded by his son Nicholas II.
• 30 October – Domenico Menegatti obtains a patent for a procedure to be applied in producing pandoro industrially.
• November 16 – Turks kill 16.000 Armenians in Kurdistan
• December 18 – Women in South Australia become the first in Australia to gain the right to vote and to be elected to Parliament.
• December 21 – Mackenzie Bowell becomes Canada's fifth prime minister.

• Western countries give up their extraterritorial rights in Japan
• Assassination of Sadi Carnot, president of France
• Tower Bridge in London opened for traffic

Births

January-March

• January 1 – Satyendra Nath Bose, Indian physicist (d. 1974)
• January 20 – Walter Piston, American composer (d. 1976)
• January 30 – King Boris III of Bulgaria (d. 1943)
• January 31 – Isham Jones, American jazz musician (d. 1956)
• February 1 – John Ford, American director and producer (d. 1973)
• February 8 – Ludwig Marcuse, German philosopher (d. 1971)
• February 10 – Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1986)
• February 11 – Alfonso Leng, Chilean composer (d. 1974)
• February 11  – Isaac Kolthooff, chemist
• February 14 – Jack Benny, American actor and comedian (d. 1974)
• February 28 – Ben Hecht, American playwright, and film writer (d. 1964)
• March 17 – Paul Green, novelist and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright (d. 1981)
• March 19  – Moms Mabley, American comedienne (d. 1975)

April-June

• April 10 – Shri Ghanshyam Das Birla, Indian industrialist, Gandhian, and educationist (d. 1983)
• April 13 – Arthur Fadden, thirteenth Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1973)
• April 15 – Bessie Smith, American blues singer (d. 1937)
• April 17 – Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, Soviet politician (d. 1971)
• April 26 – Rudolf Hess, Nazi official (d. 1987)
• May 11 – Martha Graham, American dancer and choreographer (d. 1991)
• May 16 – Walter Yust, American editor-in-chief of the Encyclopædia Britannica( d.1960)
• May 20 – Adela Rogers St. Johns, author (d. 1988)
• May 27 – Louis-Ferdinand Céline, French writer (d. 1961)
• May 27  – Dashiell Hammett, American author (d. 1961)
• May 31 – Fred Allen, American comedian (d. 1956)
• June 5 – Roy Thomson, Canadian publisher (d. 1976)
• June 9 – Nedo Nadi, Italian fencer
• June 14 – Grand Duchess Marie-Adélaïde, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg (d. 1924)
• June 23 – King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom (d. 1972)

July-September

• July 18 – Isaac Babel, Ukrainian writer (d. 1940)
• July 19 – Khawaja Nazimuddin, second Prime Minister of Pakistan (d. 1965)
• July 26 – Aldous Huxley, English author (d. 1963)
• August 3 – Harry Heilmann, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1951)
• August 28 – Karl Böhm, Austrian conductor (d. 1981)
• September 2 – Joseph Roth, Austrian writer (d. 1939)
• September 13 – J. B. Priestley, English novelist and playwright (d. 1984)
• September 13  – Julian Tuwim, Polish poet (d. 1953)
• September 15 – Jean Renoir, French film director (d. 1979)
• September 24 – Tommy Armour, Scottish golfer (d. 1968)

October-December

• October 5 – Bevil Rudd, South African athlete (d. 1948)
• October 7 – Del Lord, Hollywood director (d. 1970)
• October 14 – E. E. Cummings, American poet (d. 1962)
• October 15 – Moshe Sharett, second Prime Minister of Israel (d. 1965)
• October 25 – Claude Cahun, French photographer and writer (d. 1954)
• November 2 – Alexander Lippisch, German aerodynamics engineer (d. 1976)
• November 24 – Herbert Sutcliffe, English cricketer (d. 1978)
• November 26 – Norbert Wiener, American mathematician (d. 1964)
• November 29 – Lucille Hegamin, American singer and entertainer (d. 1970)
• December 17 – Arthur Fiedler, American conductor (d. 1979)
• December 20 – Robert Menzies, twelfth Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1978)
• December 31 – Pola Negri, Polish-born actress (d. 1987)

Unknown date

• Chaim Soutine, Russian-born painter (d. 1944)

Deaths

• February 4 – Adolphe Sax, Belgian instrument maker, inventor of the saxophone (b. 1814)
• February 6 – Maria Deraismes, French feminist (b. 1928)
• February 11 – Pasqual Juan Emilio Arrieta y Corera, composer
• June 3 – Karl Eduard Zachariae, German jurist and expert on Byzantine law (b. 1812)
• October 24 – Tsar Alexander III of Russia (b. 1845)
• November 20 – Anton Rubinstein, Russian pianist and composer (b. 1829)
• November 25 – Solomon Caesar Malan, Swiss-born orientalist (b. 1812)
• December 3 – Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish author (b. 1850)
• December 12 – John Sparrow David Thompson, Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1845)

Fictional events of the year

Sherlock Holmes returns to London from "The Great Hiatus".