1892

1892 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 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 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 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 Spainish authorities in connection with La Liga Filipina.
• 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 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.

Unknown dates

• Last open land rush is held in Oklahoma.
• The Stanley Cup is donated by Sir Frederick Arthur.
• 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 Mechanicla College (current day Virginia Tech) is established in the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets

Births

January-March

• January 1 - Artur Rodzinski, Croatian conductor (d. 1958)
• 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 26 ? Bessie Coleman, American pilot (d. 1926)
• January 28 - Ernst Lubitsch, German-born film director (d. 1947)
• January 31 - Eddie Cantor, American actor, singer (d. 1964)
• February 13 - Grant Wood, American painter (d. 1942)
• February 15 - James Forrestal, first United States Secretary of Defense (d. 1949)
• February 18 - Wendell Wilkie, candidate for President of the United States (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 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, American actress and studio founder (d. 1979)
• April 12 - Johnny Dodds, American jazz clarinettist (d. 1940)
• April 19 - Germaine Tailleferre, French composer (d. 1983)
• 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 theologist (d. 1971)
• June 26 - Pearl S. Buck, American writer (d. 1973)
• July 12 - Bruno Schulz, Polish writer and painter (d. 1942)
• July 23 - Haile Selassie I, Ethiopian emperor (d. 1975)
• July 26 - Sad Sam Jones, Major League Baseball player (d. 1966)
• 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 9 - Ivo Andrić, Croatian novelist and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature (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,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 astronautic pioneer and rocket engineer (d. 1929)

Unknown date

• Ernest Brastins, Latvian religious leader

Deaths

• January 14 - Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, second in line heir to the throne of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (b. 1864)
• January 21 - John Couch Adams, English astronomer (b. 1819)
• January 31 - Charles Spurgeon, English preacher (b. 1834)
• February 11 - Erik Anthon Valdemar Siboni, composer
• March 13 - Grand Duke Louis IV of Hesse and the Rhine
• March 26 - Walt Whitman, American poet (b. 1819)
• 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 in Africa (b. 1840)
• December 2 - Jay Gould, American financier (b. 1836)
• December 6 - Werner von Siemens, German inventor and industrialist (b. 1816)