1872

Centuries: 18th century - 19th century - 20th century

Decades: 1820s 1830s 1840s 1850s 1860s - 1870s - 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s

Years: 1867 1868 1869 1870 1871 - 1872 - 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877

Events

• January 2 - Brigham Young, is arrested for bigamy (25 wives).
• February 20 - In New York City the Metropolitan Museum of Art opens.
• March 1 - Yellowstone National Park is established as the world's first national park
• March 5 - George Westinghouse patents the air brake.
• May 10 - Victoria Woodhull becomes the first woman nominated for President of the United States.
• May 22 - Reconstruction: President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Amnesty Act of 1872[?] into law restoring full civil rights to to all but about 500 Confederate sympathizers.
• November - Ulysses S. Grant defeats Horace Greeley in the U.S. presidential election
• December 21 - HMS Challenger sails from Portsmouth on the 4 year scientific expedition that would lay the foundation for the science of oceanography
• Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition

Arts, Sciences, Literature and Philosophy

• 1872 in literature:
• 1872 in music

Births

• January 6 - Alexander Scriabin, composer (+ 1915)
• January 31 - Zane Grey, writer (+ 1939)
• March 7 - Piet Mondrian, painter (+ 1944)
• May 18 - Bertrand Russell, philosopher and logician
• May 31 - Heath Robinson, British cartoonist and illustrator.
• July 4 - Calvin Coolidge, American president
• August 3 - King Haakon VII of Norway
• August 15 - Shri Aurobindo

Deaths

• January 7 - James Fisk, entrepreneur
• April 2 - Samuel Morse, inventor of the Morse code
• June 4 - Johan Rudolf Thorbecke, Dutch politician
• Germany, Death of Ludwig Feuerbach, German Philosophy
• Benito Juarez
• December 23 - Theophile Gautier, poet, novelist