| 1984–1994 | UK [television] | Spitting Image, a programme satirizing contemporary politics using puppets created by Peter Fluck and Roger Law, is shown on British television. |
| 1987–1993 | UK [television] | French and Saunders, a comic sketch series starring comedians Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, is shown on British television. |
| 1988–1994 | USA [ecology] | The amount of chlorofluorocarbons released into the air in the USA is reduced by 52%. |
| 1993 | USA [cinema and film] | The film Schindler's List, directed by Steven Spielberg, is released in the USA. Based on Thomas Keneally's Booker Prize-winning book Schindler's Ark, it stars Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, and Ralph Fiennes. |
| 1993 | USA [computing] | Personal computers based on the first 64-bit processor, the Intel Pentium chip, go on sale in the USA. |
| 1993 | USA [computing] | Mosaic, the first graphical browser that allows pictures from the Internet to be seen, is developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, USA. |
| 1993 | USA [astronomy] | US astronomers identify part of the dark matter in the universe as stray planets and brown dwarfs. Known as MACHOs (massive astrophysical compact halo objects), they may constitute approximately half of the dark matter in the Milky Way's halo. |
| 1993 | USA [family planning] | US religious groups launch True Love Waits, an organization aiming to make pre-marital celibacy attractive to young people. Its effectiveness is unknown, although it garners a lot of publicity. |
| 1993 | Europe, USA [clothing and fashion] | The popularity of grunge music establishes a fashion trend for checked shirts, ripped jeans, and combat boots, the latter often worn with feminine dresses. |
| 1993 | Ireland [fiction] | The Irish writer Roddy Doyle publishes his novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, which wins the Booker Prize. |
| 1993 | Netherlands [health and medicine] | Legislation is introduced in the Netherlands to protect doctors involved in cases of euthanasia, effectively legalizing the practice. |
| 1993 | UK [everyday life] | In Britain, the government attempts to counter the growth of raves and house parties by placing restrictions on freedom of movement and gatherings in the form of curfews. |
| 1993 | USA [media and communication] | Personal digital assistants, the Amstrad PenPad and the Apple Newton MessagePad, are launched. These are electronic personal organizers with the facility to convert handwriting to typed text. |
| 1993 | UK [music] | Music compact discs are outselling cassettes in Britain. |
| 1993 | India [natural disasters] | An earthquake in India kills 20,000 people. |
| 1993 | UK [popular music] | The British rock group Radiohead releases the album The Bends. |
| 1993 | USA [thought and scholarship] | US writer Gore Vidal publishes United States, Essays 1952–1992. |
| 1993 | USA [statistics and demography] | The average US family donates $880, or 2% of total income, a year to charity, up from $790 in 1987. |
| 1993 | USA [statistics and demography] | A US survey reveals that 51.1 million workers, or 46% of the labour force, use computers for their work; the most popular application is word processing. |
| 1993 | USA [statistics and demography] | In the USA, 68% of black babies and 24% of white babies are born to unmarried mothers. |
| 1993 | USA [statistics and demography] | The infant mortality rate in the USA is 8.4 per 1,000 live births, down from 12.6 in 1980. The rate is 16.5 for black babies and 6.8 for white babies. |
| 1993 | UK [television] | The Church of England broadcasts the first religious commercial on British television. |
| 1 January 1993 | Europe [political events] | The European Community's single market comes into force, establishing the free movement of goods, capital, and services across national borders, with some restrictions. |
| 1 January 1993 | Czech Republic, Slovak Republic [political events] | The Czech and Slovak republics become separate sovereign countries. |
| 3 January 1993 | USA, Russia [treaties] | The US president George Bush and the Russian president Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II), committing the USA and Russia to dismantle two-thirds of their nuclear warheads. |
| 13 January 1993 | Iraq [wars] | Allied forces carry out air strikes against targets in southern Iraq following Iraq's refusal to remove missiles stationed south of the 32nd parallel (the Shiite exclusion zone). |
| 6 February 1993 | USA [births and deaths] | Arthur Ashe, US tennis player and the first black man to win a major men's singles championship, dies in New York City (49). |
| 11 February 1993 | Antarctica [exploration] | Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Dr Michael Stroud of Britain complete the first unsupported crossing of Antarctica on foot, having covered 2,160 km/1,350 mi in 95 days. |
| 20 March 1993 | Bosnia-Herzegovina [Balkan conflicts (c. 1991–2000)] | The United Nations (UN) supervises the evacuation of civilians from the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina, besieged for almost a year (the siege ends on 18 April). |
| April 1993 | UK [radio] | Businessman Richard Branson launches Virgin Radio in Britain, a new national rock music station. |
| 19 April 1993 | USA [political events] | The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) storms the compound of the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas (under siege since 28 February); over 80 people die when cult members set fire to the compound. |
| 6 May 1993 | Bosnia-Herzegovina [Balkan conflicts (c. 1991–2000)] | The United Nations Security Council declares ‘safe areas’ in Sarajevo, Tuzla, Zepa, Goradze, Bihac, and Srebrenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina; in spite of this, Bosnian Serbs attack Goradze and Srebrenica on 30 May. |
| 7 May 1993 | South Africa [elections] | Multiparty talks in Johannesburg, South Africa, reach agreement for the holding of nonracial elections by April 1994. |
| 13 May 1993 | USA [political events] | The USA formally abandons the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), its attempt to build a laser defence system against ballistic missile attack. |
| 16 May 1993 | Germany, Somalia [United Nations] | German troops are sent to Somalia as part of the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping force; this is the first time since their incorporation into NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) that they have served outside Europe. |
| 18 May 1993 | Denmark, Europe [treaties] | In a second referendum, Denmark approves the Maastricht Treaty on European union by a narrow majority, following the granting of concessions on its implementation. |
| 24 May 1993 | Eritrea, Ethiopia [political events] | Eritrea formally becomes independent from Ethiopia, after a 30-year civil war. |
| 29 May 1993 | Germany [political events] | Five Turkish women are killed in a neo-Nazi arson attack in Solingen, Germany (Turkish demonstrations and rioting throughout Germany in response to this attack continue until 1 June). |
| 5 June 1993 | USA [horse-racing] | The US jockey Julia Krone rides Colonial Affair to victory in the Belmont Stakes, New York, to become the first woman jockey to win a US Triple Crown race. |
| 25 June 1993 | Canada [political events] | Kim Campbell, Progressive Conservative, becomes the first woman prime minister of Canada, following the resignation of Brian Mulroney. |
| 2 August 1993 | Europe [political events] | Following speculative pressure on currencies in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), the mechanism collapses and currencies are allowed to fluctuate within a broad band of 15% on either side of central rates. |
| 5 August 1993 | Sudan [political events] | The government of Sudan launches a major offensive against the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), displacing 100,000 people and threatening famine. |
| 6 August 1993 | UK [everyday life] | The royal family opens Buckingham Palace, London, England, to the general public. Vistors pay £8 a head. |
| 15 August 1993 | Paraguay [elections] | Juan Carlos Wasmosy becomes the first elected president of Paraguay since the country's foundation in 1811. |
| 26 August 1993 | USA [popular music] | The US pop singer Michael Jackson, in the face of allegations of child abuse made on 17 August, withdraws from part of his world tour, and loses his sponsorship from Pepsi on 13 November. He later makes an out-of-court settlement with the boy involved, Jordy Chandler. |
| 9 September 1993 | Somalia, USA [political events] | Two hundred civilians are killed when a US helicopter on United Nations (UN) peacekeeping duty fires on a crowd in Mogadishu, Somalia. |
| 21 September 1993 | Russia [political events] | The Russian president Boris Yeltsin suspends the Russian parliament and calls elections; the Supreme Soviet defies this action and swears in Alexander Rutskoi as president. |
| 27 September 1993 | Russia [political events] | The White House in Moscow, seat of the Russian parliament, is sealed off by troops (telephone links and water and electricity supplies have already been cut off). |
| 4 October 1993 | Russia [political events] | Rebels holding out in the Moscow parliament building surrender after attacks by pro-Yeltsin forces; a state of emergency remains in force in Russia until 18 October. |
| 8 October 1993 | South Africa [political events] | The international community lifts sanctions against South Africa in response to African National Congress (ANC) leader Nelson Mandela's speech of 24 September requesting this. |
| 11 October 1993 | Georgia, Commonwealth of Independent States [political events] | Georgia joins the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the last of the former Soviet republics to do so. |
| 21 October 1993 | Burundi [political events] | President Melchior Ndadaye (Burundi's first Hutu president) and other senior ministers are killed during an attempted coup by the Tutsi-dominated army. |
| 31 October 1993 | Rome [births and deaths] | Federico Fellini, Italian film director, dies in Rome, Italy (73). |
| 1 November 1993 | Europe [treaties] | The Maastricht Treaty on European union comes into force; the European Community becomes the European Union (EU). |
| 17 November 1993 | Nigeria [political events] | A military coup ends a brief period of civilian rule in Nigeria; defence minister General Sanni Abacha takes over as head of state. |
| 15 December 1993 | Switzerland [political events] | The ‘Uruguay Round’ of negotiations for a revised General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT, started in September 1986) end in Geneva, Switzerland; 117 nations agree the GATT Final Act. |
