A Feeble But Friendly and Confiding People Are Overthrown
1893
Brazil
Metropolitan business interests, flour millers, and meat-packers supported U.S. diplomatic and naval intervention against a Brazilian revolt whose leaders opposed a recent trade agreement with the U.S.
Hawaii
Wealthy American sugar-plantation settlers stages a coup against the monarchy of Queen Lili'uokalani. Before the Queen could challenge them the settlers established a provisional government with the support of the US Minister to Hawaii, John L. Stevens. Marines were sent to protect American lives and property. A new republic was established, controlled by Sanford Dole, a powerful sugar cane planter.
Editors Note: I have seen one article that claims John L. Stevens had no part in the coup and that the multiple articles that say he was are incorrect.
"I, Lilioukalani, by the grace of God and under the Constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Queen, do hereby solemnly protest against any and all acts done against myself and the Constitutional Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom by certain persons claiming to have established a provisional government of and for this kingdom.
That I yield to the superior force of the United States of America, whose minister plenipotentiary, his excellency John L. Stevens, has caused United States troops to be landed at Honolulu and declared that he would support the provisional government.
Now, to avoid any collision of armed forces and perhaps the loss of life, I do, under this protest, and impelled by said force, yield my authority until such time as the government of the United States shall undo the action of its representative and reinstate me." — Queen Liliuokalani
After taking office a few months later President Grover Cleveland disapproved to the annexation and fired Stevens.
"By an act of war, committed with the participation of a diplomatic representative of the United States and without authority of Congress, the government of a feeble but friendly and confiding people has been overthrown. A substantial wrong has thus been done, which a due regard for our national character, as well as the rights of the injured people, requires we should endeavor to repair....
... but for the lawless occupation of Honolulu under false pretexts by the United States forces, and but for Minister Stevens' recognition of the provisional government when the United States forces were its sole support and constituted its only military strength, the Queen and her Government would never have yielded to the provisional government, even for a time and for the sole purpose of submitting her case to the enlightened justice of the United States." — President Grover Cleveland in and address to both houses of Congress December 18, 1893
Cleveland sent John Blount of Georgia to investigate the situation in Hawaii and study the possibilities for annexation. Blount reported that the mass of natives opposed the new Government, so Cleveland demanded restoration of the Queen. Pro-annexation leaders in the U.S. rejected this, so Cleveland withdrew his demand, and the coup leaders who had hoped for annexation, settled for creation of the Republic of Hawaii in 1894 with Sanford B. Dole as President.
Official Version
Hawaii emerged as a challenge to Washington in 1893, when Queen Liliuokalani's effort to break the power of foreigners in Hawaiian affairs incited an American-led revolution. American annexationists now controlled the Hawaiian government, but their plans for annexation faced powerful opposition in the United States. President Grover Cleveland opposed it, while Congress remained deadlocked on the issue. It required the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in April 1898 to eliminate much of the country's opposition to territorial expansion in the Pacific. Soon came the annexation of Hawaii, followed by the acquisition of the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico from defeated Spain. The Senate debate on territorial expansion into the Pacific was intense, but annexationists carried the day by a narrow margin. [pletcher1]
Nicaragua
U.S. Government moved to oust Great Britain from Nicaragua in order to build a canal.
USA
The failure of the U.S. Reading Railroad and withdrawal of European investment leads to a stock market and banking collapse the "Panic of 1893". This depression lasted until 1896.
On January 4, President Benjamin Harrison offered amnesty to all polygamists in jail if they promised to end their plural marriages and remain monogamous thereafter.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson was published in the U.S.
In April Henry Ford displayed his 1st Ford car powered by a gasoline engine, and successfully road tested it.
On June 2, the American Railway Union was founded in Chicago. Dues were $1 a year, and anyone employed by the railroads was eligible including miners and longshoremen. This did not apply to Negroes, who were excluded from membership regardless of their occupation.
[1] The Diplomacy of Involvement: American Economic Expansion across the Pacific, 1784-1900 by David M. Pletcher University of Missouri Press