1873

Year 1873 (MDCCCLXXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1873

January - March

• January 1
  • Japan adopts the Gregorian calendar.
  • The California Penal Code goes into effect.
• January 17 - Indian Wars: The first Battle of the Stronghold is fought during the Modoc War.
• February 11 - The Spanish Cortes deposes King Amadeus I and proclaims the First Spanish Republic.
• February 12 - Former foreign minister Emilio Castelar becomes prime minister of the new Spanish Republic.
• February 20 - The University of California opens its first medical school in San Francisco, California.
• March 1 - E. Remington and Sons of Ilion, New York start production of the first practical typewriter.
• March 3 - Censorship: The U.S. Congress enacts the Comstock Law, making it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" books through the mail.
• March 4 - President of the United States Ulysses S. Grant begins his second term.
• March 15 - The Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity is founded at the University of Massachusetts.
• March 22 - Emancipation Day for Puerto Rico: Slaves are freed (with a few exceptions).

April - June

• April 1 - The British steamer RMS Atlantic sinks off Nova Scotia, killing 547.
• April 15 - 17 - Indian Wars: The Second Battle of the Stronghold is fought.
• May - Henry Rose exhibits barbed wire at an Illinois county fair, which is taken up by Joseph Glidden and Jacob Haish, who invent a machine to mass-produce it.
• May 9 - Der Krach: The Vienna stock market crash heralds the Long Depression.
• May 23
  • The Canadian Parliament establishes the North-West Mounted Police (which is renamed the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 1920).
  • The Preakness Stakes horse race first runs in Baltimore, Maryland.
• May 28
  • C. Laan brings order to the chaos created by the dockworker riots of Tripoli, Lebanon.
  • The city of Khiva falls to Imperial Russian forces, under the command of General Konstantin Petrovich Von Kaufman.
• June 4 - Indian Wars: The Modoc War ends with the capture of Captain Jack.
• June 9 - Alexandra Palace in London is destroyed by fire only a fortnight after its opening.

July - September

• July 1 - Prince Edward Island joins the Canadian Confederation.
• July 21 - At Adair, Iowa, Jesse James and the James-Younger gang pull off the first successful train robbery in the American West (US$3,000 from the Rock Island Express).
• August 4 - Indian Wars: While protecting a railroad survey party in Montana, the Seventh Cavalry, under Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, clashes for the first time with the Sioux, near the Tongue River (only 1 man on each side is killed).
• August 12 - A peace treaty is signed between Imperial Russia and the Khanate of Khiva, making the khanate a Russian protectorate.
• September 16 - German troops leave France upon completion of payment of indemnity for the Franco-Prussian War.
• September 17 - The Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College, later The Ohio State University, opens its doors with 25 students, including 2 women.
• September 18 - The New York stock market crash triggers the Panic of 1873, part of the Long Depression.
• September 25 - Classes begin at Drury University.

October - December

• October 6 - The Co. Carlow Football Club (Rugby union) is founded.
• November 6 - The Halifax Rugby league Club is founded.
• November 7 - Alexander Mackenzie becomes the second Prime Minister of Canada.
• November 17 - From Pest, Buda and Óbuda, Budapest, Hungary's capital, is formed.
• December 15 - Women of Fredonia, New York march against the retail liquor dealers in town to inaugurate the Woman's Crusade of 1873-74. This leads to the creation of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
• December 16 - The Heineken Brewery is founded in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
• December 21 - Francis Garnier is attacked outside of Hanoi by Black Flag mercenaries fighting for the Vietnamese.

Undated

• Founding of:
  • Toronto Argonauts, the oldest professional sports team still playing in North America
  • Rangers F.C. #1
  • Royal Montreal Club in Montreal, Quebec, the first permanent golf club in North America
  • St Mary's School, Calne
• The United Kingdom declares war against Ghana's King Kofi KariKari, who is involved in the trading of slaves. The war ends by July and the British establish the Gold Coast Colony.
• Coors Brewing Company begins making beer in Golden, Colorado.
• DDT is first synthesized.
• The Swedish arms company Bofors is incorporated.
• In Mexico, Veracruz to Mexico City railroad is completed.
• Britain puts pressure on Sultan Barghash Sayyid, who closes slave markets in Zanzibar.
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky composes The Tempest.
• The Woman's Temperance League is organized by Eliza Daniel Stewart.
• Central Park is officially completed in New York City, New York.
• Nine Pekin ducks are imported to Long Island (the first in the United States).
• League of the Three Emperors is created. It links the conservative monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia in an alliance against radical movements.

Births

1873 in other calendars Gregorian calendar 1873
MDCCCLXXIII
Ab urbe condita 2626
Armenian calendar 1322
ԹՎ ՌՅԻԲ
Bahá'í calendar 29 – 30
Berber calendar 2823
Buddhist calendar 2417
Burmese calendar 1235
Byzantine calendar 7381 – 7382
Chinese calendar 壬申年十二月初三日
(4509/4569-12-3) 癸酉年十一月十二日
(4510/4570-11-12)
Coptic calendar 1589 – 1590
Ethiopian calendar 1865 – 1866
Hebrew calendar 5633 – 5634
Hindu calendars
 - Vikram Samvat 1928 – 1929
 - Shaka Samvat 1795 – 1796
 - Kali Yuga 4974 – 4975
Holocene calendar 11873
Iranian calendar 1251 – 1252
Islamic calendar 1289 – 1290
Japanese calendar Meiji 6
(明治6年)
Korean calendar 4206
Thai solar calendar 2416

January - June

• January 2 - Saint Therese of Lisieux, Catholic saint and mystic (d. 1897)
• January 7 - Adolph Zukor, Austrian-born film studio pioneer (d. 1976)
• January 8 - Iuliu Maniu, Romanian politician (d. 1953)
• January 10 - George Orton, Canadian athlete (d. 1958)
• January 12 - Spiridon Louis, Greek runner (d. 1940)
• January 20 - Johannes Vilhelm Jensen, Danish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1950)
• January 28 - Colette, French writer (d. 1954)
• January 30 - Vasily Balabanov, an administrator and Provincial Governor of Imperial Russia (d. 1947)
• February 2 - Maurice Tourneur, French film director (d. 1961)
• February 3 - Hugh Trenchard, British military aviation pioneer (d. 1956)
• February 3 - Karl Jatho, German aviation pioneer (d. 1933)
• February 4 - Étienne Desmarteau, Canadian athlete (d. 1905)
• February 13 - Feodor Chaliapin, Russian bass opera singer (d. 1938)
• February 15 - Hans von Euler-Chelpin, German-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1964)
• February 25 - Enrico Caruso, Italian tenor (d. 1921)
• March 3 - William Green, American labor leader (d. 1952)
• March 11 - David Horsley, English-born film executive (d. 1933)
• March 19 - Max Reger, German composer (d. 1916)
• April 1 (N.S.); March 20 (O.S.) - Sergei Rachmaninoff, Russian composer and pianist (d. 1943)
• April 7 - John McGraw, baseball player and manager (d. 1934)
• April 10 - Kyösti Kallio, Prime Minister and President of Finland (d. 1940)
• April 19 - Sydney Barnes, English cricketer (d. 1967)
• April 22 - Ellen Glasgow, American writer (d. 1945)
• May - Leon Frank Czolgosz, assassin of U.S. President William McKinley (d. 1901)
• May 4 - Joe De Grasse, Canadian film director (d. 1940)
• May 9 - Anton Cermak, Mayor of Chicago (d. 1933)
• May 17
  • Henri Barbusse, French novelist and journalist (d. 1935)
  • Dorothy Richardson, English feminist writer (d. 1957)
• May 28 - D.D. Sheehan, Irish politician (d. 1948)
• June 3 - Otto Loewi, German-born pharmacologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1961)
• June 26 - Alexis Carrel, French surgeon and biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1944)