1892

1892 (MDCCCXCII) was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar).

Events

January-June

• January 1 - Ellis Island begins accepting immigrants to the United States.
• January 14 - Death of Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, second in line heir to the throne of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Next in line is his younger brother Prince George of Wales.
• January 15 - James Naismith publishes the rules for basketball.
• January 20 - At the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts, the first official basketball game is played.
• February 12 - Former President Abraham Lincoln's birthday is declared a national holiday in the United States.
• March 1 - Theodoros Deligiannis ends his term as Prime Minister of Greece and Konstantinos Konstantopoulos takes office
• March 13 - Ernest Louis, a grandson of Queen Victoria becomes Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine on the death of his father, Grand Duke Louis IV.
• March 15 - Liverpool Football Club founded by John Houlding, the owner of Anfield. Houlding decided to form his own team after Everton left Anfield in an argument over rent.
• March 31 - The world's first fingerprinting bureau formally opened by the Buenos Aires Chief of Police; it had been operating unofficially since the previous year.
• April - Johnson County War in Wyoming
• April 15 - The General Electric Company is established through the merger of the Thomson-Houston Company and the Edison General Electric Company.
• May 7 - The Cook Islands issue their first postage stamps.
• May 19 - British troops defeat Ijebu infantry at the battle of Yemoja river, in modern-day Nigeria, using a maxim gun
• May 22 - British conquest of Ijebu-Ode marks major extension of colonial power into Nigerian interior.
• May 24 - Prince George of Wales becomes Duke of York.
• May 28 - In San Francisco, California, John Muir organizes the Sierra Club.
• June 11 - The Limelight Department, one of the world's first film studios, is officially established in Melbourne, Australia.

July-December

• July 4-18 British general election: Unionist government loses its majority.
• July 6 - Dr. Jose Rizal, a Filipino writer, Philosopher, and political activist arrested by Spanish authorities in connection with La Liga Filipina.
• July 6 - Homestead Strike - the arrival of a force of 300 hundred Pinkerton detectives from New York and Chicago resulted in a fight in which about 10 men were killed
• July 12 - A hidden lake bursts out of a glacier on the side of Mont Blanc, flooding the valley below and killing around 200 villagers and holidaymakers in Saint Gervais
• August 4 - The family of Lizzie Borden is found murdered in their Fall River, Massachusetts home.
• August 9 - Thomas Edison receives a patent for a two-way telegraph.
• August 18 - William Ewart Gladstone assumes British premiership at head of Liberal government with Irish Nationalist Party support.
• September 15 - Sergei Witte replaces Ivan Vishnegradksy as Russian finance minister.
• October 5 - Master criminal Adam Worth is captured in Liège, Belgium during an attempted robbery of a money delivery cart.
• October 12 - To mark 400 anniversary Columbus Day holiday, the "Pledge of Allegiance" was first recited in unison by students in US public schools.
• October 31 - Arthur Conan Doyle publishes The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
• November 8 - U.S. presidential election, 1892: Grover Cleveland is elected over Benjamin Harrison and James B. Weaver to win the second of his non-consecutive terms.
• November 8 - Anarchist bomb kills six in police station in Avenue de l'Opera, Paris
• November 17 - French troops occupy Abomey, capital of kingdom of Dahomey.
• December 5 - John Thompson becomes Canada's fourth prime minister.

• December - Newcastle United Football Club following a merger of Newcastle East Football Club and Newcastle West Football Club earlier that year a new name was given to the club, Newcastle United Football Club

Unknown dates

• Last open land rush is held in Oklahoma.
• The Stanley Cup is donated by Sir Frederick Stanley.
• Pennsauken is incorporated.
• Rudolf Diesel patents the diesel engine.
• Oil fire rages in Oil City, Pennsylvania: 130 dead.
• Cholera in Hamburg, Germany
• Tortoise called Timothy is brought to the estate of Powderham Castle in England (allegedly alive as of 2001 - at least 148 years old).
• Abu Dhabi becomes a British protectorate.
• The Cadet Band (current day Highty-Tighties) of the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College (current day Virginia Tech) is established in the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets
• Abercrombie & Fitch, a now popular clothing brand, is established as an outdoor and sporting supply store.

Births

January-March

• January 1 - Artur Rodzinski, Croatian conductor (d. 1958)
• January 1 - Manuel Roxas, President of the Philippines (d. 1948)
• January 3 - J. R. R. Tolkien, South African-born author (d. 1973)
• January 14 - Hal Roach, American film and television producer (d. 1992)
• January 18 - Oliver Hardy, American comedian and actor (d. 1957)
• January 18 - Paul Rostock, German surgeon (d. 1956)
• January 19 - Ólafur Thors, Icelandic politician and five times prime minister (d. 1964)
• January 28 - Ernst Lubitsch, German-born film director (d. 1947)
• January 31 - Eddie Cantor, American actor, singer (d. 1964)
• February 6 - William Parry Murphy, American physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1987)
• February 13 - Grant Wood, American painter (d. 1942)
• February 15 - James Forrestal, first United States Secretary of Defense (d. 1949)
• February 18 - Wendell Wilkie, U.S. Presidential candidate (d. 1944)
• February 22 - Edna St. Vincent Millay, American writer (d. 1950)
• February 27 - William Demarest, American actor (d. 1983)
• March 10 - Arthur Honegger, French-born Swiss composer (d. 1955)
• March 10 - Gregory La Cava, American director, producer, and writer (d. 1952)
• March 28 - Corneille Heymans, Belgian physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1968)
• March 30 - Stefan Banach, Polish mathematician (d. 1945)

April-September

• April 6 - Donald Wills Douglas, American industrialist (d. 1981)
• April 6 - Lowell Thomas, American journalist (d. 1981)
• April 8 - Mary Pickford, Canadian actress and studio founder (d. 1979)
• April 12 - Johnny Dodds, American jazz clarinettist (d. 1940)
• April 19 - Germaine Tailleferre, French composer (d. 1983)
• May 2 - Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron), German fighter pilot (d. 1918)
• May 3 - George Paget Thomson, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1975)
• May 7 - Archibald MacLeish, American poet (d. 1982)
• May 7 - Josip Broz Tito, President of Yugoslavia (d. 1980)
• May 9 - Zita of Bourbon-Parma, Empress of Austria-Hungary (d. 1989)
• May 11 - Margaret Rutherford, English actress (d. 1972)
• May 12 - Fritz Kortner, Austrian-born director (d. 1970)
• May 18 - Ezio Pinza, Italian bass (d. 1957)
• May 31 - Michel Kikoine, Belarusian painter (d. 1968)
• June 21 - Reinhold Niebuhr, American theologian (d. 1971)
• June 26 - Pearl S. Buck, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)
• July 8 - Richard Aldington, English poet (d. 1962)
• July 11 - Thomas Mitchell, American actor (d. 1962)
• July 12 - Bruno Schulz, Polish writer and painter (d. 1942)
• July 23 - Haile Selassie I, Ethiopian emperor (d. 1975)
• July 26 - Sad Sam Jones, baseball player (d. 1966)
• July 29 - William Powell, American actor (d. 1984)
• August 2 - Jack Warner, Canadian film producer (d. 1978)
• August 8 - Rafael Moreno Aranzadi, Spanish footballer (d. 1922)
• August 15 - Louis, 7th duc de Broglie, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1987)
• September 4 - Darius Milhaud, French composer (d. 1974)
• September 5 - Joseph Szigeti, Hungarian violinist (d. 1973)
• September 6 - Edward Victor Appleton, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1965)
• September 10 - Arthur Compton, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1962)
• September 12 - Alfred A. Knopf, American publisher (d. 1984)

October-December

• October 7 - Dwain Esper, Director (d. 1982)
• October 9 - Ivo Andrić, Serbo-Croatian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1975)
• October 9 - Marina Tsvetaeva, Russian poet (d. 1941)
• October 23 - Gummo Marx, American actor and comedian (d. 1977)
• October 28 - Dink Johnson, American jazz musician (d. 1954)
• October 31 - Alexander Alekhine, Russian chess champion (d. 1946)
• November 5 - J. B. S. Haldane, British geneticist (d. 1964)
• November 12 - Guo Moruo, Chinese author and poet (d. 1978)
• December 2 - Leo Ornstein, Russian-born composer and pianist (d. 2002)
• December 4 - Francisco Franco, Spanish dictator (d. 1975)
• December 6 - Osbert Sitwell, English writer (d. 1969)
• December 8 - Bert Hinkler, Australian pioneer aviator (d. 1933)
• December 12 - Herman Potočnik Noordung, Slovenian rocket engineer (d. 1929)

Deaths

• January 14 - Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, second in line for the throne of the United Kingdom (b. 1864)
• January 21 - John Couch Adams, English astronomer (b. 1819)
• January 31 - Charles Spurgeon, English preacher (b. 1834)
• March 13 - Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine
• March 26 - Walt Whitman, American poet (b. 1819)
• April 19 - Fr. Thomas Pelham Dale SSC, Anglo-Catholic clergyman prosecuted for Ritualist practices in the 1870s (b. 1821)
• April 22 - Edouard Lalo, French composer (b. 1823)
• April 25 - William Backhouse Astor, Jr., American businessman (b. 1830)
• April 26 - Sir Provo William Perry Wallis, British admiral and naval hero
• May 29 - Bahá'u'lláh, Persian founder of the Bahá'í Faith (b. 1817)
• June 9 - William Stairs, Canadian explorer (b. 1863)
• October 12 - Ernest Renan, French philologist and historian (b. 1823)
• October 23 - Emin Pasha, German doctor and Governor of Equatoria (b. 1840)
• December 2 - Jay Gould, American financier (b. 1836)
• December 6 - Werner von Siemens, German inventor and industrialist (b. 1816)

Date unknown

• Gerald Haxton secretary and lover of the famous novelist and playwright W. Somerset Maugham (b. 1944)

Uncertain dates

• Viruses discovered by the Russian-Ukrainian biologist Dmitry Ivanovsky.