1895 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar).

Events

January

• January 5 - Dreyfus Affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island.

February

• February 14 - First showing of Oscar Wilde's last play The Importance of Being Earnest (St. James' Theatre in London).

March

• March 1 - William L. Wilson is appointed United States Postmaster General
• March 3 - In Munich, bicyclists have to pass a test and display license plates

April

• April 6 - Oscar Wilde is arrested after losing a libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry.
• April 14 - a major earthquake severely damages Ljubljana, Slovenia.
• April 17 - The Treaty of Shimonoseki (also known as Treaty of Maguan) was signed between China and Japan. This marks the end of the first Sino-Japanese War, and the defeated Qing Empire is forced to renounce its claims on Korea and to concede the southern portion of the Fengtien province, Taiwan and the Pescadores Islands to Japan.

May

• May 25 - Playwright, poet and novelist Oscar Wilde is convicted of "sodomy and gross indecency" and sentenced to serve two years in a London prison.

June

• June 11 - Britain annexes Togoland
• June 28 - Union of Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador begins (ends in 1898).

July

• July 15 - Archie MacLaren scores County Championship record innings of 424 for Lancashire against Somerset at Taunton.

August

• August 19 - American frontier murderer and outlaw, John Wesley Hardin, is killed by an off-duty policeman in a saloon in El Paso, Texas.
• August 29 - The sport of rugby league is formed at a meeting in the George Hotel, Huddersfield, England.

September

• September 3 - The first professional football game is played, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, between the Latrobe YMCA and the Jeannette Athletic Club. (Latrobe won the contest 12-0.).

November

• November 5 - George B. Selden is granted the first U.S. patent for an automobile.
• November 8 - Wilhelm Röntgen discovers a type of radiation later known as X-rays.
• November 27 - At the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Alfred Nobel signs his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after he dies (he died of a cerebral hemorrhage on December 10, 1896).

December

• December 28 - Auguste and Louis Lumiere display their first moving picture film in Paris

Unknown date

• Konstantin Tsiolkovsky proposes a space elevator
• Most recent major earthquake in the New Madrid Fault Zone
• Grace Chisholm Young, the first woman awarded a doctorate at a German university

Births

January births

• January 1 - J. Edgar Hoover, FBI director (d. 1972)* January 21 - Cristobal Balenciaga, Spanish-French couturier (d. 1972)
• January 24 - Eugen Roth, lyricist and narrator (d. 1976)
• January 30 - Wilhelm Gustloff, Swiss Nazi party leader( d. 1936)

February births

• February 2 - George Halas, American football player, coach, co-founder of the National Football League (d. 1983)
• February 6 - Babe Ruth, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1948)
• February 8 - King Vidor, director (d. 1982)
• February 11 - Viktor Nikolayevich Trambitsky , composer.
• February 14 - Max Horkheimer, German philosopher and sociologist (d. 1973)
• February 15 - Earl Thomson, Canadian athlete (d. 1971)
• February 21 - Henrik Carl Peter Dam Danish biochemist, winner of the 1943 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1976)

March births

• March 3 - Matthew Ridgway, Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, United States Army Chief of Staff (d. 1993)
• March 12 - William C. Lee, Maj. General United States Army (d. 1948)
• March 17 - Shemp Howard, actor ("The Three Stooges") (d. 1955)
• March 20 - Robert Benoist, French Grand Prix motor racing driver and war hero (d. 1944)
• March 29 - Ernst Jünger, German author (d. 1998)
• March 30 - Nikolai Bulganin, Premier of the Soviet Union (d. 1975)

April births

• April 1 - Alberta Hunter, American singer (d. 1984)
• April 9 - Mance Lipscomb, American popular singer (d. 1976)
• April 15 - Clark McConachy, New Zealand snooker and billiards player (d. 1980)
• April 20 - Emile Christian, American jazz musician (d. 1973)
• April 26 - Nathaniel Kleitman , sleep researcher (d. 1999)
• April 28 - Spencer W. Kimball, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 1985)
• April 29 - Malcolm Sargent, English conductor (d. 1967)

May births

• May 6 - Rodolfo Valentino, Italian actor (d. 1926)
• May 8 - Fulton J. Sheen, American Catholic archbishop and television personality (d. 1979)
• May 9 - Richard Bathelmess , actor (d. 1963)
• May 30 - Maurice Tate, English cricketer (d. 1956)

July births

• July 10 - Carl Orff, German composer (d. 1982)
• July 12 - Kirstin Flagstad, Norwegian soprano (d. 1982)
• July 12 - Buckminster Fuller, American architect (d. 1983)
• July 25 - Yvonne Printemps, French singer and actress (d. 1977)

September births

• September 11 - Vinoba Bhave, Indiasn religious leader (d. 1982)
• September 29 - J.B. Rhine, parapsychologist and ESP researcher (d. 1980)

October births

• October 2 - Bud Abbott, actor (d. 1974)
• October 4 - Buster Keaton, American actor and film director (d. 1966)
• October 8 - Ahmet Zog, King of Albania (d. 1961)
• October 19 - Lewis Mumford, historian (d. 1990)
• October 21 - Edna Purviance, actress (d. 1958)
• October 25 - Levi Eshkol, Prime Minister of Israel (d. 1969)

November births

• November 5 - Walter Gieseking, French conductor (d. 1956)
• November 15 - Antoni Słonimski, Polish poet and writer (d. 1976)
• November 16 - Paul Hindemith, German composer (d. 1963)
• November 25 - Wilhelm Kempff, German conductor (d. 1991)
• November 29 - Busby Berkeley, film director, choreographer (d. 1976)

December births

• December 2 - Harriet Cohen, pianist (d. 1967)
• December 14 - Paul Eluard, French poet (d. 1952)
• December 14 - King George VI of the United Kingdom (d. 1952)
• Tuanku Abdul Rahman ibni Almarhum Tuanku Muhammad, later Yang di-Pertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan and 1st Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia (d. 1960)

Deaths

January deaths

• January 9 Aaron Lufkin Dennison father of the American System of Watch Manufacturing

February deaths

• February 2 - Archduke Albert, Austrian general
• February 20 - Frederick Douglass, ex-slave and author

March deaths

• March 2 - Berthe Morisot, Impressionist Painter
• March 10 - Charles Frederick Worth couturier

May deaths

• May 19 - José Martí, Cuban independence leader (Dos Rios)
• May 21 - Franz von Suppé, composer

June deaths

• June 29 - Sir Thomas Henry Huxley, English biologist

August deaths

• August 5 - Friedrich Engels, socialist philosopher

September deaths

• September 28 - Louis Pasteur, French microbiologist and chemist

October deaths

• October 25 - Charles Hallé, pianist and conductor

November deaths

• November 27 - Alexandre Dumas, fils, author, playwright