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 adopted the use of the Gregorian calendar.
  • The California Penal Code comes into effect.
• January 17 - Indian Wars: First Battle of the Stronghold during the Modoc War.
• February 11 - 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 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: Second Battle of the Stronghold.
• 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: Vienna stock market crash heralds Long Depression.
• May 23
  • The Canadian Parliament establishes the North-West Mounted Police (which will be renamed the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 1920).
  • First running of the Preakness Stakes horse race 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 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, clash for the first time with the Sioux (near the Tongue River; only one 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 Franco-Prussian War.
• September 17 - The Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College, later The Ohio State University, opens its doors with 25 students, including two women.
• September 18 - New York stock market crash, triggering the panic of 1873 (again part of the Long Depression).
• September 25 - Classes begin at Drury University.

October - December

• October 6 - Foundation of Co. Carlow Football Club Rugby union Club.
• November 6 - Formation of the Halifax Rugby league Club.
• November 7 - Alexander Mackenzie becomes Canada's second prime minister.
• 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 led to the creation of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
• December 16 - 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.

Updated

• Founding of:
  • Toronto Argonauts, the oldest professional sports team still playing in North America
  • Rangers F.C.
  • 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 was involved in the trading of slaves. The war ended by July and the British established the Gold Coast Colony.
• Coors Brewing Company begins making beer in Golden, Colorado.
• DDT first synthesized.
• Swedish arms company Bofors is incorporated.
• In Mexico, Veracruz to Mexico City railroad completed.
• Britain puts pressure on Sultan Barghash Sayyid who closes slave markets in Zanzibar
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky composes The Tempest
• Womans Temperance League organized by Eliza Daniel Stewart
• Central Park is officially completed in New York City, New York.
• Nine Pekin ducks were imported to Long Island, the first Pekins in the United States.

Births

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 (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)

July - December

• July 1 - Alice Guy-Blaché, French-American filmmaker (d. 1968)
• July 20 - Alberto Santos-Dumont, Brazilian aviation pioneer (d. 1932)
• August 5 - Joseph Russell Knowland, American politician and newspaperman (d. 1966)
• August 13 - Cornelis Jacobus Langenhoven
• August 17 - John A. Sampson, American gynecologist (d. 1946)
• August 26 - Lee De Forest, American inventor (d. 1961)
• September 1 - Sir Guy Standing, British actor (d. 1937)
• September 5 - Cornelius Vanderbilt III, American military officer, inventor, engineer (d. 1942)
• September 8 - David O. McKay, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 1970)
• September 20
  • Sidney Olcott, pioneer film director (d. 1949)
  • Ferenc Szisz, Hungarian-born race car driver (d. 1944)
• September 21 - Papa Jack Laine, jazz musician (d. 1966)
• September 26 - Wac?aw Berent, Polish novelist and translator (d. 1940)
• October 2 - Stephen Warfield Gambrill, U.S. Congressman for Maryland's 5th District. (d. 1924)
• October 3 - Emily Post, American etiquette expert (d. 1960)
• October 9 - Charles Rudolph Walgreen, American businessman (d. 1939)
• October 14 - Ray Ewry, American athlete (d. 1937)
• October 19
  • Jaap Eden, Dutch skater and cyclist (d. 1925)
  • John Barton King, American cricketer (d. 1965)
• October 26
  • Thorvald Stauning, Prime Minister of Denmark (d. 1942)
  • A. K. Fazlul Huq, Bengali statesman (d. 1962)
• November 16 - W. C. Handy, American blues composer (d. 1958)
• November 22 - Johnny Tyldesley, English cricketer (d. 1930)
• December 7 - Willa Cather, American novelist (d. 1947)
• December 11 - Josip Plemelj, Slovenian mathematician (d. 1967)
• December 17 - Ford Madox Ford, English writer (d. 1939)
• December 20 - Kwan-Ichi Asakawa, Japanese historian(d. 1948)
• December 26 - Thomas Wass, Nottinghamshire bowler (d. 1953)
• December 30 - Al Smith, American politician (d. 1944)
• date unknown
  • James Cousins, Irish writer (d. 1956)
  • William Ernest Hocking, American philosopher (d. 1966)

Deaths

January - June

• January 9 - Napoleon III, last Emperor of the French (b. 1808)
• January 18 - Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, English writer (b. 1803)
• January 23 - Jothi Ramalinga Swamigal, Hindu religious leader (b. 1823)
• January 29 - The Venerable Father Basil Anthony Marie Moreau, Founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross (b. 1799)
• February 7 - Sheridan Le Fanu, Irish writer (b. 1814)
• February 19 - Vasil Levski, Bulgarian revolutionary (b. 1837)
• March 10 - John Torrey, American botanist (b. 1796)
• March 24 - Mary Ann Cotton, English serial killer (b.1832)
• March 25 - Wilhelm Marstrand, Danish painter (b. 1810)
• April 11 - Edward Canby, U.S. general (b. 1817)
• April 18 - Justus von Liebig, German chemist (b. 1803)
• April 27 - William Charles Macready, English actor (b. 1793)
• May 4 - David Livingstone, Scottish explorer of Africa (b. 1813)
• May 6 - José Antonio Páez, first President of Venezuela (b. 1790)
• May 7 - Salmon P. Chase, Chief Justice of the United States (b.1808)
• May 8 - John Stuart Mill, British philosopher (b. 1806)
• May 15 - Alexandru Ioan Cuza,First Romania's reigning (b. 1820)
• May 20 - George-Étienne Cartier, Canadian statesman (b. 1814)
• May 29 - Edouard de Verneuil, palaeontologist (b. 1805)
• June 1 - Joseph Howe, Canadian politician (b. 1804)

July - December

• August 18 - Charles II, Duke of Brunswick (b. 1804)
• September 11 - Augustín Fernández Muñoz, Duke of Riansares, morganatic husband of Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies
• September 17 - Alexander Berry, Scottish adventurer and Australian pioneer (b. 1781)
• September 22 - Friedrich Frey-Herosé, Swiss Federal Councilor (b. 1801)
• September 23 - Jean Chacornac, French astronomer (b. 1823)
• October 9 - George Ormerod, English historian and antiquarian (b. 1785)
• November 6 - Breton de los Herreros, Spanish playwright (b. 1796)
• December 14 - Louis Agassiz, Swiss-born geologist and naturalist (b. 1807)

Genealogical Resources

• 1873 Return of Owners of Land

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