Events of 1892

January–March

February 27: Rudolf Diesel's patent.

• January 1 – Ellis Island begins accommodating immigrants to the United States.

• 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.

• February 18 – Pennsauken Township, New Jersey is incorporated.

• February 27 – Rudolf Diesel applies for a patent on his compression ignition engine (the Diesel engine).

• 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 – The Liverpool Football Club is founded by John Houlding, the owner of Anfield. Houlding decides to form his own team after Everton leaves Anfield in an argument over rent.

• March 20 – The first ever French rugby championship final takes place in Paris. Pierre de Coubertin referees the match, which Racing Club de France wins 4–3 over Stade Français.

• March 31 – The world's first fingerprinting bureau is formally opened by the Buenos Aires Chief of Police; it had been operating unofficially since the previous year.

April–June

• April – The Johnson County War breaks out between small farmers and large ranchers in Wyoming.

• April 1 – The city of Maebashi is founded by the samurai Makuba Kawai.

• April 15 – The General Electric Company is established through the merger of the Thomson-Houston Company and the Edison General Electric Company.

• April 29 – Redondo Beach, California, USA is founded.

• May 7 – The Cook Islands issue their first postage stamps.

• May 19 – Battle of Yemoja River: British troops defeat Ijebu infantry in modern-day Nigeria, using a maxim gun.

• May 22 – The British conquest of Ijebu-Ode marks a major extension of colonial power into the 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 4 – Abercrombie & Fitch is established by David T. Abercrombie.

• June 7 – Homer Plessy (who is black) is arrested for sitting on the whites-only car in Louisiana, leading to the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson court case.

• June 11 – The Limelight Department, later one of the world's first film studios, is officially established in Melbourne, Australia.

• June 30 – The Homestead Strike begins in Homestead, Pennsylvania, culminating in a battle between striking workers and private security agents on July 6.

July–September

• July 4 Samoa: Samoa changes its time zone to being 3 hours behind California, such that it crosses the international date line and July 4th occurs twice.

• July 4–18 British general election: The Unionist government loses its majority.

• July 6

• *Dr. Jose Rizal, Filipino writer, philosopher, and political activist is arrested by Spanish authorities in connection with La Liga Filipina.

• *Homestead Strike: The arrival of a force of 300 Pinkerton detectives from New York and Chicago results in a fight in which about 10 men are killed.

• July 8 – The Great Fire of 1892 devastates the city of St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador.

• 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 .

• August 4 – The father and stepmother of Lizzie Borden are 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 3 – The Nottingham Forest Football Club plays their first league match, a 2–2 draw with Everton FC.

• September 15 – Sergei Witte replaces Ivan Vyshnegradsky as Russian finance minister.

October–December

October 5: Dalton Gang.

Oct.31: "Sherlock Holmes"

• October 5

• *The Dalton Gang, attempting to rob 2 banks in Coffeyville, Kansas, is shot by the townspeople; only Emmett Dalton, with 23 wounds, survives to spend 14 years in prison.

• *Master criminal Adam Worth is captured in Liège, Belgium during an attempted robbery of a money delivery cart.

• October 12 – To mark the 400th anniversary Columbus Day holiday, the "Pledge of Allegiance" is first recited in unison by students in U.S. public schools.

• October 31 – Sir 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.

• *An anarchist bomb kills 6 in a police station in Avenue de l'Opera, Paris.

• *The four-day New Orleans General Strike begins.

• November 17 – French troops occupy Abomey, capital of the kingdom of Dahomey.

• December 5 – John Thompson becomes Canada's fourth prime minister.

• December 22 – The Newcastle East End F.C. is renamed Newcastle United F.C., following the demise of the Newcastle West End F.C. and East End's move to St James' Park, formerly West End's home.

• December 25 – Christmas Day, Formation of the Kool-Squad Leaders

Stanley Cup.

Otto Lilienthal sketches key A-frame or triangle control frame (TCF) in 1892

Undated

• Andrew Carnegie combines all of his separate businesses into the Carnegie Steel Company, allowing him to gain a monopoly in the steel industry.

• The first Canadian National Rugby-Football Championship game is played (Osgoode Hall defeats Montreal 45–5).

• The Stanley Cup is donated by Sir Frederick Stanley.

• An oil fire in Oil City, Pennsylvania kills 130.

• A cholera outbreak occurs in Hamburg, Germany.

• A tortoise called Timothy is brought to the estate of Powderham Castle in England, where she lives until her death in 2004.

• 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.

• The Community of the Resurrection, an Anglican religious community for men, is founded by Charles Gore and Walter Frere.

• Viruses are discovered by the Russian–Ukrainian biologist Dimitri Ivanovski.

• Thomas Ahearn is the first person to prepare a meal on an electric stove.

• The first electric light bulb in Bulgaria is used at the Plovdiv Fair.

• Otto Lilienthal, the "father of hang gliding", sketches a monoplane hang glider that involves the A-frame triangular control frame (TCF) that double functions as a kingpost.

• Worthington, Ontario, Canada is incorporated as a mining community.

Births

January–June

• January 1

• *Artur Rodziński, Polish conductor (d. 1958)

• *Manuel Roxas, President of the Philippines (d. 1948)

• January 3 – J. R. R. Tolkien, professor and author of The Lord of the Rings (d. 1973)

• January 14

• *Hal Roach, American film and television producer (d. 1992)

• *Martin Niemöller, prisoner in the Nazi Holocaust (d. 1984)

• January 18

• *Oliver Hardy, American comedian and actor (d. 1957)

• *Paul Rostock, German surgeon (d. 1956)

• January 19 – Ólafur Thors, Icelandic politician and five times prime minister (d. 1964)

• January 26 – Zara Cully, American actress (d. 1978)

• 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 9 – Tommy Treichel, American professional wrestler (d. 1932)

• February 13 – Grant Wood, American painter (d. 1942)

• February 15 – James Forrestal, first United States Secretary of Defense (d. 1949)

• February 18 – Wendell Willkie, U.S. Republican presidential candidate (d. 1944)

• February 21 – Harry Stack Sullivan, American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst (d. 1949)

• February 22 – Edna St. Vincent Millay, American writer (d. 1950)

• February 24 – Konstantin Fedin, Russian writer (d. 1977)

• February 27 – William Demarest, American actor (d. 1983)

• March 9 – Victoria Mary Sackville-West, English writer, and gardener (d. 1962)

• March 10

• *Arthur Honegger, French-born Swiss composer (d. 1955)

• *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 6

• *Donald Wills Douglas, American industrialist (d. 1981)

• *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 13 – Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt, British (Scottish) inventor of radar (d. 1973)

• April 19 – Germaine Tailleferre, French composer (d. 1983)

• April 28 – Joseph Dunninger, American mentalist (d. 1975)

• May 2 – Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron), German World War I 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 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 16 – Manton S. Eddy, U.S. general (d. 1962)

• May 18 – Ezio Pinza, Italian bass (d. 1957)

• May 25 – Josip Broz Tito, President of Yugoslavia (d. 1980)

• May 26 – Maxwell Bodenheim, American poet and novelist (d. 1954)

• May 30 – Fernando Amorsolo, Filipino painter (d. 1972)

• May 31 – Michel Kikoine, Belarusian painter (d. 1968)

• June 1 – Amanullah Khan, ruler of Afghanistan (d. 1960)

• June 15 – Wallace Wade, American football coach, University of Alabama, Duke University (d. 1986)

• June 21 – Reinhold Niebuhr, American theologian (d. 1971)

• June 25 – Katherine K. Davis, American composer (d. 1980)

• June 26 – Pearl S. Buck, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)

• June 30 – Oswald Pohl, German S.S. officer (d. 1951)

July–December

• July 6 – Willy Coppens, Belgian World War I flying ace (d. 1986)

• 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 11 – Hugh MacDiarmid, Scottish poet (d. 1978)

• August 16 – 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 6 – Jackie Saunders, silent movie actress (d. 1954)

• 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 27 – Graciliano Ramos, Brazilian writer (d. 1953)

• October 28 – Dink Johnson, American jazz musician (d. 1954)

• October 30 – Charles Atlas, Italian-American strongman and sideshow performer (d. 1972)

• October 31 – Alexander Alekhine, Russian chess champion (d. 1946)

• November 5 – J. B. S. Haldane, British geneticist (d. 1957)

• November 9 – Erich Auerbach, German philologist (d. 1964)

• November 12 – Guo Moruo, Chinese author and poet (d. 1978)

• November 16 – Tazio Nuvolari, Italian racing driver (d. 1953)

• November 22 – Emma Tillman, briefly the world's oldest living person and last verified person born in 1892 (d. 2007)

• December 2 – Leo Ornstein, Russian-born composer and pianist (d. 2002)

• December 4 – Francisco Franco, Spanish dictator (d. 1975)

• December 5 – Cyril Ring, American film actor (d. 1967)

• 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)

• December 21 – Amy Key Clarke, English mystical poet (d. 1980)

• December 27 – Alfred Edwin McKay, Canadian World War I flying ace (d. 1917)

• December 31 – Stanley Price, American film and television actor (d. 1955)

• date unknown – Gerald Haxton, secretary and lover of W. Somerset Maugham (d. 1944)

Deaths

January–June

• January 12 – William Reeves, Irish antiquarian (b. 1815)

• 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)

• February 5 – Emilie Flygare-Carlén, Swedish novelist (b. 1807)

• February 27 – Louis Vuitton, world-renowned French fashion designer (b. 1821)

• March 13 – Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine

• March 16 – Samuel F. Miller, American politician (b. 1827)

• March 26 – Walt Whitman, American poet (b. 1819)

• April 4 – José María Castro Madriz, President of Costa Rica (b. 1818)

• 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 22 – Alexander Campbell, Canadian politician (b. 1822)

• May 29 – Bahá'u'lláh, Persian founder of the Bahá'í Faith (b. 1817)

• June 9 – William Grant Stairs, Canadian explorer (b. 1863)

July–December

• July 30 – Count Joseph Alexander Hübner, Austrian diplomat (b. 1811)

• September 7 – John Greenleaf Whittier, American poet and abolitionist (b. 1807)

• October 12 – Ernest Renan, French philologist and historian (b. 1823)

• October 23 – Emin Pasha, German doctor and Governor of Equatoria (b. 1840

• October 24 – Mir-Fatah-Agha, Shiite cleric

• October 25 – Caroline Harrison, wife of President Benjamin Harrison (b. 1832)

• December 2 – Jay Gould, American financier (b. 1836)

• December 6 – Werner von Siemens, German inventor and industrialist (b. 1816)

• December 11 – William Milligan, Scottish theologian (b. 1821)

• date unknown – Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, Tibetan teacher (b. 1820)