- Jan 4 Hendrik Goeman Borgesius, Dutch politician
- Jan 20 W R Pettiford, Founder (Alabama Penny Savings Bank)
- Feb 2 Jules Francois Blasini, Curacaos pianist/composer
- Feb 7 Ernst Franck, German composer/conductor
- Feb 8 Hugh Price Hughes, English social reformer (d. 1902)
- Feb 10 A N Hornby, cricketer (pioneering England Test batsman)
Thomas Edison
Feb 11 Thomas Edison, American inventor (lightbulb, phonograph, motion picture camera), born in Milan, Ohio (d. 1931)
Thomas Edison
- Feb 14 Anna Howard Shaw, American suffragette, born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England (d. 1919)
- Feb 14 Maria Pia of Savoy, Queen of Portugal, born in Roal Palace, Turin, Sardinia (d. 1911)
- Feb 15 Robert Fuchs, composer
- Feb 16 Ludwig Philipp Scharwenka, German composer (Album polonaise)
- Feb 25 John Watson, Canadian philosopher (Objective Idealism)
- Feb 27 Ellen Alice Terry, British actress and director (Imperial Theatre), born in Coventry, Warwickshire, England (d. 1928)
- Feb 27 Dame Ellen Terry, British Shakespearean actress (Imperial Theatre), born in Coventry, England (d. 1928)
Alexander Graham Bell
Mar 3 Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish-born British-American inventor (telephone), born in Edinburgh, Scotland (d. 1922)
Alexander Graham Bell
Kate Sheppard
Mar 10 Kate Sheppard, New Zealand suffragette and the most prominent member of New Zealand's women's suffrage movement, born in Liverpool, England (d. 1934)
Kate Sheppard
- Mar 14 Antonio de Castro Alves, Brazilian poet (Espumas Flutuantes), born in Muritiba, Brazil (d. 1871)
- Mar 19 Constantin Dimitrescu, composer
- Mar 23 Alexandru D Xenopol, Romania, historian
- Mar 27 Otto Wallach, German chemist (Nobel 1910), born in Königsberg, Germany (d. 1931)
- Mar 31 Jarolslaw Zielinski, composer
- Mar 31 Yegor Ivanovich Zolotarev, Russian mathematician (d. 1878)
- Apr 1 Gavriil Musicescu, composer
- Apr 1 Jules-Nicolas Crevaux, French explorer (South America)
- Apr 7 J. P. [Jens Peter] Jacobsen, Danish writer (Niels Lyhne), born in Thisted, Jutland (d. 1885)
- Apr 9 Paolo Tosti, Italian composer, born in Ortona, Italy (d. 1916)
- Apr 9 Francis William Davenport, English composer, born in Wilderslowe, Derby (d. 1925)
- Apr 10 Charles Swinnerton Heap, English composer, born in Birmingham, England (d. 1900)
- Apr 10 Joseph Pulitzer, Hungarian publisher (St Louis Post-Dispatch, NY World), born in Makó, Kingdom of Hungary, Austrian Empire (d. 1911)
- Apr 13 Cornelis Pijnacker Hordijk, gov-gen (Neth East-Indies)
- Apr 16 Hans Auer, Swiss-Austrian architect, born in Wädenswil, Switerland (d. 1906)
Archibald Primrose
May 7 Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, British Prime Minister (Liberal: 1894-95), born in London (d. 1929)
Archibald Primrose
- May 10 Wilhelm Killing, German mathematician (d. 1923)
- May 13 Johannes Haarklou, composer
- May 25 Alphonse Goovaerts, Belgian composer and musicologist (Histoire et Bibliographie de la Typographie Musicale dans les Pays-Bas), born in Antwerp, Belgian (d. 1922)
- May 25 John Alexander Dowie, [Elijah the Restorer], American evangelist
- May 30 Alice Stopford Green, Irish historian and proponent of Irish independence, born in Kells, Ireland (d. 1929)
- Jun 6 Gerben Postma, [Ids], Frisian writer (Swealtsjeblommen)
- Jun 8 Ida McKinley, U.S. 1st lady (1897-1901), the wife of 25th U.S. president William McKinley, born in Canton, Ohio (d. 1907)
- Jun 11 Millicent Fawcett, English leader of women's rights, born in London (d. 1929)
- Jun 24 Gervais Bernard Gaston Salvayre, composer
- Jun 28 Sveinbjorn Sveinbjornsson, composer
- Jun 30 Jacob T Cremer, min of Colonies/pres (Dutch Trading Comp)
- Jul 2 Marcel Bertrand, French mine engineer (tectonic geology)
- Jul 4 James Anthony Bailey, American circus impresario (Barnum & Bailey), born in Detroit, Michigan (d. 1906)
- Jul 5 Agnes Marie Jacobina Zimmermann, composer
- Jul 20 Max Liebermann, German impressionist painter
- Jul 31 Ignatio Cervantes, composer
- Aug 1 Guido Papini, violinist/composer
- Aug 3 Jan de Louter, lawyer/tutor of Dutch Queen Wilhelmina
- Aug 9 Maria Victoria al Pozzo della Cisterna, queen consort of Spain (d. 1876)
- Aug 14 Robert Comtesse, member of the Swiss Federal Council (d. 1922)
- Aug 20 Bolesław Prus, Polish writer (d. 1912)
- Aug 20 Andrew Greenwood, England cricketer (d. 1889)
- Aug 21 Arthur T Verhaegen, Belgian worker's union leader
- Aug 22 Alexander Campbell Mackenzie, composer
- Aug 23 Sarah Frances Whiting, American physicist and astronomer, born in Wyoming, New York (d. 1927)
- Aug 27 Gustave J Waffelaert, Flemish theologist/bishop of Bridge
- Sep 2 Roger Wolcott, 39th Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1900)
Jesse James
Sep 5 Jesse James, American outlaw, son of a clergyman, born in Kearney, Missouri (d. 1882)
Jesse James
- Sep 13 Charles Dupee Blake, composer
- Sep 14 William Edward Ayrton, English Physicist and Inventor, born in London, England
- Sep 16 Albert Ross Parsons, composer
- Sep 20 Sergei G Netsjajev, Russian nihilist (Catechism Revolutionary)
- Sep 30 Wilhelmina E Drucker, [Lensing], Dutch feminist
- Oct 1 Annie Besant, English social reformer and supporter of Indian independence, born in London (d. 1933)
Paul von Hindenburg
Oct 2 Paul von Hindenburg, German WW1 general and President of Germany (1925-34), born in Posen, Duchy of Posen, Prussia (d. 1934)
Paul von Hindenburg
- Oct 6 Adolf von Hildebrand, German sculptor, born in Marburg, Germany (d. 1921)
- Oct 9 Andre Dumont, Belgian mine engineer (Limburg's coal basin), born in Liège, Belgium (d. 1920)
- Oct 9 Stephanus Jacobus du Toit, South African theologist and journalist (Afrikaner Bond), born in Paarl, South Africa (d. 1911)
- Oct 10 Gheorghe Dima, composer
- Oct 21 Guiseppe Giacosa, Italian songwriter (libretti opera Puccini)
- Oct 22 Jacobus Herculas [Uncle Koos] de la Rey, South African politician
- Oct 31 Galileo Ferraris, Italian physicist and electrical engineer, born in Livorno Ferraris, Italy (d. 1897)
- Nov 1 Emma Albani, Canadian soprano (d. 1930)
- Nov 2 Georges Sorel, French philosopher and theorist of Sorelianism, born in Cherbourg, France (d. 1922)
Bram Stoker
Nov 8 Bram Stoker, Irish theater manager and author (Dracula), born in Dublin, Ireland (d. 1912)
Bram Stoker
- Nov 8 Jean Casimir-Perier, French politician (d. 1907)
- Nov 16 Edmund James Flynn, Canadian politician (d. 1927)
- Nov 26 Maria Fyodorovna, Princess of Denmark and Empress of Russia (d. 1928)
- Nov 30 August Friedrich Martin Klughardt, composer
- Dec 1 Agathe Grondahl, composer
- Dec 2 Deacon White, American baseball player and a star during the first two decades of the sport's professional era, born in Caton, New York (d. 1939)
- Dec 7 Solomon Schechter, US Talmudic scholar/Jewish leader
- Dec 9 George Grossmith, British actor, comedian and writer (The Diary of a Nobody, A Society Clown), born in London, England (d. 1912)
- Dec 16 Augusta Mary Anne Holmes, composer
- Dec 17 Émile Faguet, French writer and critic (d. 1916)
- Dec 30 John Peter Altgeld, German/US (Gov-Ill)/pardoned Haymarket-anarchists