1892 - Definition and Overview

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.
• 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.

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.
• 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 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

Births

January-March

• January 1 - Artur Rodzinski, Croatian conductor (d. 1958)
• January 3 - J. R. R. Tolkien, British author (d. 1973)
• January 14 - Hal Roach, film producer (d. 1992)
• January 15 - Rex Ingram, director, writer (d. 1950)
• January 18 - Oliver Hardy, comedian, actor (d. 1957)
• January 26 ? Bessie Coleman, first licensed African-American female pilot (d. 1926)
• January 28 - Ernst Lubitsch, film director (d. 1947)
• January 31 - Eddie Cantor, actor, singer (d. 1964)
• February 13 - Grant Wood, painter (d. 1942)
• February 15 - James Forrestal, first United States Secretary of Defense (d. 1949)
• February 18 - Wendell Wilkie, politician, Presidential candidate (d. 1944)
• February 22 - Edna St. Vincent Millay, writer (d. 1950)
• February 27 - William Demarest, actor (d. 1983)
• March 10 - Arthur Honegger, composer (d. 1955)
• March 10 - Gregory La Cava, director, producer, writer (d. 1952)
• March 30 - Stefan Banach, great Polish mathematician (d. 1945)
• March 11 - Raoul Walsh, film director (d. 1980)

April-September

• April 2 - Jack Warner, Hollywood studio founder (d. 1978)
• April 6 - Donald Wills Douglas, American industrialist (d. 1981)
• April 6 - Lowell Thomas, travel writer (d. 1981)
• April 8 - Mary Pickford, actress, studio founder (d. 1979)
• April 12 - Johnny Dodds, jazz musician (d. 1940)
• April 19 - Germaine Tailleferre, composer (d. 1983)
• May 7 - Archibald MacLeish, poet, Pulitzer Prize winner (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, actress (d. 1972)
• May 12 - Fritz Kortner, director (d. 1970)
• May 18 - Pops Foster, jazz musician (assumed birthdate) (d. 1969)
• May 18 - Ezio Pinza, Italian bass (d. 1957)
• May 31 - Michel Kikoine, Belarus painter (d. 1968)
• June 21 - Reinhold Niebuhr, American theologist (d. 1971)
• 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 8 - Rafael Moreno Aranzadi, Spanish football player (d. 1922)
• September 4 - Darius Milhaud, composer
• September 5 - Joseph Szigeti, Hungarian violinist (d. 1973)
• September 12 - Alfred A. Knopf, American publisher (d. 1984)

October-December

• October 9 - Ivo Andrić (d.1975), Serbo-Croatian novelist - winner, 1961 Nobel Prize for Literature
• October 9 - Marina Tsvetaeva, Russian poet
• October 23 - Gummo Marx, actor, comedian (d. 1977)
• October 28 - Dink Johnson, jazz musician (d. 1954)
• October 31 - Alexander Alekhine, chess champion
• November 5 - J. B. S. Haldane, British geneticist
• December 2 - Leo Ornstein, composer and pianist (d. 2002)
• December 4 - Francisco Franco, Spanish dictator, 1939 (d. 1975)
• December 8 - Bert Hinkler, Australian pioneer aviator. (d. 1933)
• December 12 - Herman Potočnik Noordung, Slovene astronautic pioneer and rocket engineer (d. 1929)

unknown date

• Ernest Brastins born in Latvia, religious leader (Dievturiba)

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
• January 21 - John Couch Adams, astronomer
• January 31 - Charles Spurgeon
• February 11 - Erik Anthon Valdemar Siboni, composer
• March 13 - Grand Duke Louis IV of Hesse and the Rhine
• March 26 - Walt Whitman, American poet
• April 25 - William Backhouse Astor, Jr., member of the Astor family
• April 26 - Sir Provo William Perry Wallis, British Admiral and naval hero
• May 29 - Persian prophet, Mírzá Husayn-'Alí (Bahá'u'lláh), founder of the Bahá'í Faith
• June 9 - William Stairs, Victorian explorer
• October 12 - Ernest Renan, French philologist and historian.
• October 23 - Emin Pasha, German doctor, naturalist to Africa
• December 2 - Jay Gould, American financier
• December 6 - Werner von Siemens, German inventor and industrialist