1892

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

Decades: 1840s 1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s - 1890s - 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s

Years: 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 - 1892 - 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897

• January 1 - Ellis Island begins accepting 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.
• March 13 - Ernest Louis, a grandson of Queen Victoria becames Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine[?] on the death of his father, Grand Duke Louis IV.
• May 7 - The Cook Islands issue their first postage stamps.
• May 28 - In San Francisco, California, John Muir organizes the Sierra Club.
• November - Grover Cleveland defeats Benjamin Harrison in the U.S. presidential election, marking the first (and only) time a non-incumbent ex-President wins re-election.
• December 5 - John Thompson becomes Canada's fourth prime minister.
• Last open land rush[?] is held in Oklahoma.
• The Stanley Cup is donated by Sir Frederick Arthur[?].

Births

• January 3 - J. R. R. Tolkien, British author (+ 1973)
• January 14 - Hal Roach[?], film producer (+ 1992)
• January 15 - Rex Ingram, director, writer (+ 1950)
• January 18 - Oliver Hardy, comedian, actor (+ 1957)
• January 28 - Ernst Lubitsch, film director (+ 1947)
• January 31 - Eddie Cantor, actor, singer (+ 1964)
• February 13 - Grant Wood, painter (+ 1942)
• February 15 - James Forrestal, first United States Secretary of Defense (+ 1949)
• February 18 - Wendell Wilkie, politican, Presidential candidate (+ 1944)
• February 22 - Edna St. Vincent Millay, writer (+ 1950)
• February 27 - William Demarest[?], actor (+ 1983)
• March 10 - Arthur Honegger, composer
• March 10 - Gregory La Cava[?], director, producer, writer (+ 1952)
• March 30 - Stefan Banach, great Polish mathematician
• March 11 - Raoul Walsh[?], film director (+ 1980)
• April 2 - Jack Warner, Hollywood studio founder (+ 1978)
• April 6 - Donald Wills Douglas[?], American industrialist (+ 1981)
• April 6 - Lowell Thomas[?], travel writer (+ 1981)
• April 8 - Mary Pickford, actress, studio founder (+ 1979)
• April 19 - Germaine Tailleferre, composer
• May 7 - Archibald MacLeish[?], poet, Pulitzer Prize winner (+ 1982)
• May 8 - Ezio Pinza[?], opera singer (+ 1957)
• May 9 - Zita of Bourbon-Parma, empress of Austria-Hungary (+ 1989)
• May 11 - Margaret Rutherford, actress (+ 1972)
• May 12 - Fritz Kortner[?], director
• September 4 - Darius Milhaud, composer
• October 9 - Marina Tsvetaeva, Russian poet
• October 31 - Alexander Alekhine, chess champion
• November 5 - J. B. S. Haldane, British geneticist
• December 4 - Francisco Franco, dictator of Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975.
• December 12 - Herman Potočnik Noordung, Slovene pioneer of astronautics and cosmonautics, and rocket engineer (+ 1929).
• Ernest Brastins[?] born in Latvia, religious leader (Dievturiba)

Deaths

• 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 26 - Sir Provo William Perry Wallis[?], British Admiral and naval hero, dies at 100
• May 29 - Bahaullah, Prophet-Founder of the Bahai Faith.
• June 9 - William Stairs, Victorian explorer
• December 2 - Jay Gould, American financier
• December 6 - Werner von Siemens, German inventor and industrialist.
• Ernst Renan[?], French philologist and historian.