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Year '1872' ('MDCCCLXXII') was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar).

Contents

Events of 1872

January - March

April - June

July - September

October - December

Undated

Births

January - June

July - December

Deaths

January - June

July - December

Fictional events

Events of 1872

January - March

★ January 2 - Brigham Young is arrested for polygamy (28 wives).

★ January 12 - Yohannes IV is crowned Emperor of Ethiopia in Axum, the first ruler crowned in that city in over 500 years.

★ February 20 - In New York City the Metropolitan Museum of Art closes for "urban renovation".

★ March 1 - Yellowstone National Park is established as the world's first national park.

★ March 5

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★ George Westinghouse patents the "failsafe" automatic railway air brake.

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★ The case of Tichborne Claimant decided against the claimant Arthur Orton.

★ March 11 - Work began erecting Seven Sisters Colliery, South Wales; Located on one of the richest coal sources in Britain.

★ March 26 - Earthquake at Lone Pine, California with an estimated magnitude of 7.2.

April - June

★ May 10 - Victoria Woodhull becomes the first woman nominated for President of the United States, although she is a year too young to qualify and does not appear on the ballot.

★ May 22 - Reconstruction: President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Amnesty Act of 1872 into law restoring full civil rights to all but about 500 Confederate sympathizers.

★ June 14 - Trade unions legalised in Canada. [1]

July - September

★ July 4 - Society of Jesus is pronounced illegal in the German Empire.

★ September 1 - Group of Icaiche Maya under Marcos Canul attack Orange Walk Town in British Honduras. British send troops against them.

October - December

★ October 1 - The Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College began its first academic session. The university was later renamed Virginia Tech

★ November 5

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★ Ulysses S. Grant defeats Horace Greeley in the U.S. presidential election.

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★ Women's suffrage: In defiance of the law, suffragist Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time (on November 18 she was served an arrest warrant and in the subsequent trial she was fined $100 - she never paid the fine).

★ November 7 - ''Mary Celeste'' sets sail from New York, bound for Genoa.

★ November 9 - Great Boston Fire of 1872: In Boston, Massachusetts, a large fire begins to burn on Lincoln Street (the two day event destroyed about 65 acres (0.3 km²) of city, 776 buildings, much of the financial district and caused US$60 million in damage).

★ November 27 - Meteor shower display over France.

★ November 29

★
★ Indian Wars: The Modoc War begins with the Battle of Lost River.

★
★ November 29 - Horace Greeley, President Grant's opponent in the United States presidential election, 1872, dies. His electoral votes are divided among several candidates.

★ November 30 - First ever international football match takes place at Hamilton Crescent, Scotland. Scotland 0 England 0

★ December 4 - The crewless American ship ''Mary Celeste'' is found by the British brig ''Dei Gratia'' (the ship was abandoned for 9 days but was only slightly damaged).

★ December 12 - A meteorite struck earth near Banbury, England.

★ December 13 - The Mary Celeste is found off the coast of Portugal completely void of life.

★ December 21 - HMS Challenger sails from Portsmouth on the 4 year scientific expedition that would lay the foundation for the science of oceanography.

Undated

★ Louis Ducos du Hauron creates the first color photograph. [2]

★ London Metropolitan Police strike.

★ In the aftermath of the War of the Triple Alliance, new government of Paraguay makes peace with Brazil, grant reparations and territorial concessions.

★ Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition.

★ Foundation of the ''Kolozsvári Egyetem'', the predecessor of the University of Szeged.

★ US government geologist Clarence King reveals the diamond hoax in Wyoming.

★ Thomas Hardy anonymously publishes his romantic novel ..Under the Greenwood Tree...

★ Virginia Tech is established.

Births

January - June

★ January 6 - Alexander Scriabin, Russian composer (d. 1915)

★ January 23 - Gotse Delchev, Bulgarian revolutionary (d. 1903)

★ January 31 - Zane Grey, American writer (d. 1939)

★ February 1 - Jerome F. Donovan, American politician (d. 1949)

★ March 7 - Piet Mondrian, Dutch painter (d. 1944)

★ April 29 - Harry Payne Whitney, businessman, horse breeder (d. 1930)

★ May 18 - Bertrand Russell, English philosopher and mathematician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (d. 1970)

★ May 21 - Henry Warren, Inventor of the first commercially viable electric clock, the Telechron

★ May 31

★
★ Charles Greeley Abbot, American astrophysicist (d. 1973)

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★ Heath Robinson, British cartoonist and illustrator (d. 1944)

★ June 20 - George Carpenter, the 5th General of The Salvation Army (d. 1948)

★ June 27 - Paul Laurence Dunbar, American poet and publisher (d. 1906)

July - December

★ July 1 - Louis Blériot, French aviation pioneer (d. 1936)

★ July 4 - Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States (d. 1933)

★ July 16 - Roald Amundsen, Norwegian polar explorer (d. 1928)

★ August 3 - King Haakon VII of Norway (d. 1957)

★ August 9 - Archduke Joseph August of Austria, Austrian field marshal (d. 1962)

★ August 10 - Bill Johnson, American jazz musician (d. 1972)

★ August 13 - Richard Willstätter, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1942)

★ August 15 - Sri Aurobindo, Indian nationalist, writer, and mystic (d. 1950)

★ August 21 - Aubrey Beardsley, British artist (d. 1898)

★ October 11 - Harlan F. Stone, Chief Justice of the United States (d. 1946)

★ November 30 - John McCrae, Canadian soldier and poet (d. 1918)

★ December 21 - Don Lorenzo Perosi, Italian composer (d. 1956)

★ December 24 - Benjamin Rockaway, writer (d. 1897)

★ December 26 - Norman Angell, British politician, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1967)
: ''See also .''

Deaths

January - June

★ January 7 - Big Jim Fisk, American financier (b. 1834)

★ January 21 - Franz Grillparzer, Austrian writer (b. 1791)

★ March/April Mercator Cooper, American sea captain (b.1803)

★ March 20 - William Wentworth, Australian explorer (b. 1790)

★ April 1 - Frederick Maurice, English theologian (b. 1805)

★ April 2 - Samuel Morse, American inventor (b. 1791)

★ June 4 - Stanisław Moniuszko, Polish composer (b. 1819)

★ June 4 - Johan Rudolf Thorbecke, Dutch politician (b. 1798)

★ June 20 - Elie Frédéric Forey, Marshal of France (b. 1804)

July - December

★ July 18 - Benito Juárez, President of Mexico (b. 1806)

★ August 19 - Charles XV, King of Sweden and Norway (b. 1826)

★ September 10 - Avram Iancu, Romanian Transylvanian insurgent (b. 1824)

★ September 13 - Ludwig Feuerbach, German philosopher (b. 1804)

★ October 23 - Théophile Gautier, French writer (b. 1811)

★ November 28 - Mary Somerville, British mathematician (b. 1780)

★ November 29 - Horace Greeley, newspaper editor and presidential candidate (b. 1811)

★ December 15 - Lady Beaconsfield, wife of Benjamin Disraeli (b. 1792)
: ''See also .''

Fictional events

★ October 2-December 21 - Phileas Fogg and his servant Passepartout travel around the world in Jules Vernes novel ''Around the World in Eighty Days''.