1892

January–March

 * January 1 – Ellis Island begins accommodating immigrants to the United States.
 * January 15 –James Naismith's rules for basketball are published for the first time in the Springfield YMCA International Training School's newspaper, in an article titled "A New Game".
 * February 18 – Pennsauken Township, New Jersey is incorporated.
 * February 27 – Rudolf Diesel applies for a patent on his compression ignition engine (the Diesel engine).
 * February 29 – St. Petersburg, Florida is incorporated.
 * March 1 – Theodoros Deligiannis ends his term as Prime Minister of Greece and Konstantinos Konstantopoulos takes office.
 * March 6–8 – "Exclusive Agreement": Rulers of the Trucial States (Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Ras al-Khaimah and Umm al-Quwain) sign an agreement by which they become de facto British protectorates.
 * March 11 – First basketball game ever played in public, between students and faculty at the Springfield YMCA. The final score is 5–1 in favor of the students, with the only goal for the faculty being scored by Amos Alonzo Stagg.  A crowd of 200 spectators watches the game.
 * March 13 – Ernest Louis, a grandson of Queen Victoria, becomes Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine on the death of his father, Grand Duke Louis IV.
 * March 15 – The Liverpool Football Club is founded by John Houlding, the owner of Anfield. Houlding decides to form his own team after Everton leaves Anfield in an argument over rent.
 * March 18 – Sir Frederick Stanley announces his intention to donate the Stanley Cup.
 * March 20 – The first ever French rugby championship final takes place in Paris. Pierre de Coubertin referees the match, which Racing Club de France wins 4–3 over Stade Français.
 * March 31 – The world's first fingerprinting bureau is formally opened by the Buenos Aires Chief of Police; it has been operating unofficially since the previous year.

April–June

 * April – The Johnson County War breaks out between small farmers and large ranchers in Wyoming.
 * April 15 – The General Electric Company is established through the merger of the Thomson-Houston Company and the Edison General Electric Company.
 * April 29 – Redondo Beach, California, USA is founded.
 * May 7 – The Cook Islands issue their first postage stamps.
 * May 19 – Battle of Yemoja River: British troops defeat Ijebu infantry in modern-day Nigeria, using a maxim gun.
 * May 20 – Last broad gauge "Down" train from Paddington on Great Western Railway.
 * May 22 – The British conquest of Ijebu Ode marks a major extension of colonial power into the Nigerian interior.
 * May 24 – Prince George (later George V) becomes Duke of York.
 * May 28 – In San Francisco, John Muir organizes the Sierra Club.
 * June 4 – Abercrombie & Fitch is established by David T. Abercrombie.
 * June 5 – An oil fire in Oil City, Pennsylvania, kills 130 people.
 * June 7 – Homer Plessy (who is black) is arrested for sitting on the whites-only car in Louisiana, leading to the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson court case.
 * June 11 – The Limelight Department, later one of the world's first film studios, is officially established in Melbourne, Australia.
 * June 30 – The Homestead Strike begins in Homestead, Pennsylvania, culminating in a battle between striking workers and private security agents on July 6.

July–September

 * July 4 – Samoa changes its time zone to being 3 hours behind California, such that it crosses the international date line and July 4 occurs twice.
 * July 4–July 18 – British general election: The Unionist government loses its majority.
 * July 6
 * Dr. José Rizal, Filipino writer, philosopher, and political activist is arrested by Spanish authorities in connection with La Liga Filipina.
 * Homestead Strike: The arrival of a force of 300 Pinkerton detectives from New York and Chicago results in a fight in which about 10 men are killed.
 * July 8 – The Great Fire of 1892 devastates the city of St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador.
 * July 12 – A hidden lake bursts out of a glacier on the side of Mont Blanc, flooding the valley below and killing around 200 villagers and holidaymakers in Saint-Gervais-les-Bains.
 * July 13 – United International Bureau for the Protection of Intellectual Property (UIBPIP or BIRPI).
 * August – The first electric light bulb in Bulgaria is used at the Plovdiv Fair.
 * August 4 – The father and stepmother of Lizzie Borden are found murdered in their Fall River, Massachusetts home.
 * August 4 – Franklin Park, Illinois is incorporated as a village.
 * August 9 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for a two-way telegraph.
 * August 18 – William Ewart Gladstone assumes British premiership at head of Liberal government, with Irish Nationalist Party support.
 * September 3 – The Nottingham Forest Football Club plays their first league match, a 2–2 draw with Everton FC.
 * September 15 – Sergei Witte replaces Ivan Vyshnegradsky as Russian finance minister.
 * September – Women first admitted to Yale University's graduate school

October–December

 * October 1 – The University of Chicago holds its first classes.
 * October 5
 * The Dalton Gang, attempting to rob 2 banks in Coffeyville, Kansas, is shot by the townspeople; only Emmett Dalton, with 23 wounds, survives, to spend 14 years in prison.
 * Master criminal Adam Worth is captured in Liège, Belgium during an attempted robbery of a money delivery cart.
 * October 12 – To mark the 400th anniversary Columbus Day holiday, the "Pledge of Allegiance" is first recited in unison by students in U.S. public schools.
 * October 31 – The first collection of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories from The Strand Magazine, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, is published in London.
 * November 8
 * U.S. presidential election, 1892: Grover Cleveland is elected over Benjamin Harrison and James B. Weaver to win the second of his non-consecutive terms.
 * An anarchist bomb kills six in a police station in Avenue de l'Opéra, Paris.
 * The four-day New Orleans General Strike begins.
 * November 17 – French troops occupy Abomey, capital of the kingdom of Dahomey.
 * November 24 The Hotel Zinzendorf catches fire in the city of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. 45 people die.
 * December 5 – John Thompson becomes Canada's fourth prime minister.
 * December 18 – The Nutcracker ballet with music by Tchaikovsky is premiered at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, Russia.
 * December 22 – The Newcastle East End F.C. is renamed Newcastle United F.C., following the demise of the Newcastle West End F.C. and East End's move to St James' Park, formerly West End's home, in the north east of England.

Date unknown

 * Andrew Carnegie combines all of his separate businesses into the Carnegie Steel Company, allowing him to gain a monopoly in the steel industry.
 * Inter-Parliamentary Bureau for Permanent Arbitration
 * The first Canadian National Rugby-Football Championship game is played (Osgoode Hall defeats Montreal 45–5).
 * A cholera outbreak occurs in Hamburg, Germany.
 * A tortoise called Timothy is brought to the estate of Powderham Castle in England, where she lives until her death in 2004.
 * Abu Dhabi becomes a British protectorate.
 * The Cadet Band (current day Highty-Tighties) of the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College (current day Virginia Tech) is established in the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets.
 * The Community of the Resurrection, an Anglican religious community for men, is founded by Charles Gore and Walter Frere.
 * Viruses are discovered by the Russian–Ukrainian biologist Dimitri Ivanovski.
 * Worthington, Ontario, Canada is incorporated as a mining community.
 * Construction of Trans-Siberian Railway begins.
 * Unione Sportiva Pro Vercelli football club is founded in Piedmont, Italy.

January–February

 * January 1
 * Artur Rodziński, Polish conductor (d. 1958)
 * Manuel Roxas, President of the Philippines (d. 1948)
 * January 3 – J. R. R. Tolkien, professor and author of The Lord of the Rings (d. 1973)
 * January 10 – Vladimir Littauer, Equestrian trainer and coach (d. 1989)
 * January 12 – Mikhail Kirponos, Soviet general (d. 1941)
 * January 14
 * Hal Roach, American film and television producer (d. 1992)
 * Martin Niemöller, prisoner in the Nazi Holocaust (d. 1984)
 * January 15 – Rex Ingram, Irish film director (d. 1950)
 * January 16 – Charles W. Ryder, American general (d. 1960)
 * January 18
 * Oliver Hardy, American comedian and actor (d. 1957)
 * Paul Rostock, German surgeon (d. 1956)
 * January 19 – Ólafur Thors, Icelandic politician and five times prime minister (d. 1964)
 * January 22 – Marcel Dassault, French aircraft industrialist (d. 1986)
 * January 25 – Takeo Takagi, Japanese admiral (d. 1944)
 * January 26 – Zara Cully, American actress (d. 1978)
 * January 28 – Ernst Lubitsch, German-born film director (d. 1947)
 * January 31 – Eddie Cantor, American actor, singer (d. 1964)
 * February 3 – Juan Negrín, Spanish physician and politician, 67th Prime Minister of Spain (d. 1956)
 * February 4 – Yrjö Kilpinen, Finnish composer (d. 1959)
 * February 5 – Shunji Isaki, Japanese admiral (d. 1943)
 * February 6
 * Sir John Carden, 6th Baronet, English tank and vehicle designer (d. 1935)
 * William Parry Murphy, American physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1987)
 * February 10 – Alan Hale, Sr., American actor (d. 1950)
 * February 13 – Robert H. Jackson, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials (d. 1954)
 * February 14 – Radola Gajda, Czech commander and politician (d. 1948)
 * February 15 – James Forrestal, first United States Secretary of Defense (d. 1949)
 * February 18 – Wendell Willkie, U.S. Republican presidential candidate (d. 1944)
 * February 21 – Harry Stack Sullivan, American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst (d. 1949)
 * February 22 – Edna St. Vincent Millay, American writer (d. 1950)
 * February 23 – Kathleen Harrison, English actress (d. 1995)
 * February 24 – Konstantin Fedin, Russian writer (d. 1977)
 * February 27 – William Demarest, American actor (d. 1983)
 * February 29
 * Ed Appleton, American baseball player (d. 1932)
 * Augusta Savage, American sculptor (d. 1962)

March–April

 * March 9 – Vita Sackville-West, English writer, and gardener (d. 1962)
 * March 10
 * Arthur Honegger, French-born Swiss composer (d. 1955)
 * Gregory La Cava, American director, producer, and writer (d. 1952)
 * March 15 – Charles Nungesser, French aviator and World War I fighter ace (d. 1927)
 * March 16 – César Vallejo, Peruvian poet (d. 1938)
 * March 25 – Andy Clyde, Scottish actor (d. 1967)
 * March 27 – Ferde Grofé, American pianist and composer (d. 1972)
 * March 28
 * Corneille Heymans, Belgian physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1968)
 * Tom Maguire, Irish Republican (d. 1993)
 * March 30
 * Stefan Banach, Polish mathematician (d. 1945)
 * Erhard Milch, German field marshal and Luftwaffe officer (d. 1972)
 * April 4 – Italo Mus, Italian painter (d. 1967)
 * April 6
 * Donald Wills Douglas, American industrialist (d. 1981)
 * Lowell Thomas, American journalist (d. 1981)
 * April 8 – Mary Pickford, Canadian actress and studio founder (d. 1979)
 * April 12 – Johnny Dodds, American jazz clarinettist (d. 1940)
 * April 12 – Henry Darger, reclusive American outsider artist (d. 1973)
 * April 13
 * Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet, British World War II Royal Air Force commander (d. 1984)
 * Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt, British (Scottish) inventor of radar (d. 1973)
 * April 19 – Germaine Tailleferre, French composer (d. 1983)
 * April 26 – Richard L. Conolly, American admiral (d. 1962)
 * April 27 – Raizō Tanaka, Japanese admiral (d. 1969)
 * April 28 – Joseph Dunninger, American mentalist (d. 1975)

May–June

 * May 2 – Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron), German World War I fighter pilot (d. 1918)
 * May 3
 * George Paget Thomson, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1975)
 * Jacob Viner, Canadian economist (d. 1970)
 * May 5 – Rajarsi Janakananda, A leading disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda. (d. 1955)
 * May 7 – Archibald MacLeish, American poet (d. 1982)
 * May 9 – Zita of Bourbon-Parma, Empress of Austria-Hungary (d. 1989)
 * May 11 – Margaret Rutherford, English actress (d. 1972)
 * May 12 – Fritz Kortner, Austrian-born director (d. 1970)
 * May 16 – Manton S. Eddy, U.S. general (d. 1962)
 * May 18 – Ezio Pinza, Italian bass (d. 1957)
 * May 23 – Rafael Moreno Aranzadi, Spanish footballer (d. 1922)
 * May 25 – Josip Broz Tito, President of Yugoslavia (d. 1980)
 * May 26 – Maxwell Bodenheim, American poet and novelist (d. 1954)
 * May 30 – Fernando Amorsolo, Filipino painter (d. 1972)
 * May 31
 * Michel Kikoine, Belarusian painter (d. 1968)
 * Gregor Strasser, German Nazi politician (d. 1934)
 * June 1 – Amānullāh Khān, ruler of Afghanistan (d. 1960)
 * June 13 – Basil Rathbone, British actor (d. 1967)
 * June 15 – Wallace Wade, American football coach, University of Alabama, Duke University (d. 1986)
 * June 21 – Reinhold Niebuhr, American theologian (d. 1971)
 * June 22 – Robert Ritter von Greim, German field marshal (d. 1945)
 * June 25
 * Shirō Ishii, Japanese microbiologist and lieutenant general of Unit 731 (d. 1959)
 * Katherine K. Davis, American composer (d. 1980)
 * June 26 – Pearl S. Buck, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)
 * June 30 – Oswald Pohl, German S.S. officer (d. 1951)

July–August

 * July 1 – James M. Cain, American author and journalist (d. 1977)
 * July 3 – Thomas White, English cricketer (d. 1979)
 * July 4 – Henry M. Mullinnix, American admiral (d. 1943)
 * July 6 – Willy Coppens, Belgian World War I flying ace (d. 1986)
 * July 8
 * Richard Aldington, English poet (d. 1962)
 * Dean O'Banion, American gangster (d. 1924)
 * July 11
 * Trafford Leigh-Mallory, British aviator and Royal Air Force Air Chief Marshal (d. 1944)
 * Thomas Mitchell, American actor (d. 1962)
 * July 12 – Bruno Schulz, Polish writer and painter (d. 1942)
 * July 16 – Michel Coiffard, French World War I fighter ace (d. 1918)
 * July 17 – Edwin Harris Dunning, British aviator (d. 1917)
 * July 22 – Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Austrian Nazi politician (d. 1946)
 * July 23 – Haile Selassie I, Ethiopian emperor (d. 1975)
 * July 26 – Sad Sam Jones, baseball player (d. 1966)
 * July 28
 * Joe E. Brown, American actor and comedian (d. 1973)
 * K. Kanagaratnam, Ceylon Tamil civil servant and politician (d. 1952)
 * July 29 – William Powell, American actor (d. 1984)
 * August 2 – Jack L. Warner, Canadian film producer (d. 1978)
 * August 11
 * Władysław Anders, Polish general and politician (d. 1970)
 * Hugh MacDiarmid, Scottish poet (d. 1978)
 * August 12 – Alfred Lunt, American actor and stage director (d. 1977)
 * August 15 – Walther Nehring, German general (d. 1983)
 * August 16 – Louis de Broglie, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1987)
 * August 17 – Tamon Yamaguchi, Japanese admiral (d. 1942)
 * August 19 – Elizabeth Kozlova, Russian ornithologist (d. 1975)
 * August 25 – Gabriel Guérin, French World War I fighter ace (d. 1918)

September–October

 * September 4 – Darius Milhaud, French composer (d. 1974)
 * September 5 – Joseph Szigeti, Hungarian violinist (d. 1973)
 * September 6 – Edward Victor Appleton, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1965)
 * September 10 – Arthur Compton, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1962)
 * September 11 – Pinto Colvig, American vaudeville actor, radio actor, newspaper cartoonist, prolific movie voice actor, and circus performer (original voice of Goofy) (d. 1967)
 * September 12 – Alfred A. Knopf, American publisher (d. 1984)
 * September 15 – Louis Favre, French painter (d. 1956)
 * October 3 – Sentarō Ōmori, Japanese admiral (d. 1974)
 * October 4
 * Engelbert Dollfuss, Austrian statesman and chancellor (d. 1934)
 * Luis Trenker, South Tyrolean film producer, director, writer, actor, architect, and alpinist.(d. 1990)
 * October 6 – Jackie Saunders, silent movie actress (d. 1954)
 * October 8 – Marina Tsvetaeva, Russian poet (d. 1941)
 * October 9 – Ivo Andrić, Serbo-Croatian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1975)
 * October 13 – Malcolm McGregor, American actor in silent films (d. 1945)
 * October 14 – Andrei Yeremenko, Soviet military leader, Marshal of the Soviet Union (d. 1970)
 * October 16
 * Kiyonao Ichiki, Japanese army officer (d. 1942)
 * Józef Kustroń, Polish general (d. 1939)
 * October 17 – R. K. Shanmukham Chetty, Indian Jurist and Economist (d. 1953)
 * October 23 – Gummo Marx, American actor and comedian (d. 1977)
 * October 27 – Graciliano Ramos, Brazilian writer (d. 1953)
 * October 28 – Dink Johnson, American jazz musician (d. 1954)
 * October 29 – Stanisław Ostrowski, former President of Poland (d. 1982)
 * October 30 – Charles Atlas, Italian-American strongman and sideshow performer (d. 1972)
 * October 31 – Alexander Alekhine, Russian chess champion (d. 1946)

November–December

 * November 5 – J. B. S. Haldane, British geneticist (d. 1964)
 * November 9 – Erich Auerbach, German philologist (d. 1957)
 * November 11 – Isidor Achron, Polish-American Pianist, composer; brother of Joseph Achron. (d. 1948)
 * November 12 – Guo Moruo, Chinese author and poet (d. 1978)
 * November 14 – Dieudonné Costes, French aviator (d. 1973)
 * November 16
 * Richard Hale, American singer and actor (d. 1981)
 * Tazio Nuvolari, Italian racing driver (d. 1953)
 * November 22 – Emma Tillman, briefly the world's oldest living person and last verified person born in 1892 (d. 2007)
 * November 24 – Daniel McVey, Australian public servant (d. 1972)
 * December 2 – Leo Ornstein, Russian-born composer and pianist (d. 2002)
 * December 4 – Francisco Franco, Spanish dictator (d. 1975)
 * December 5 – Cyril Ring, American film actor (d. 1967)
 * December 6 – Osbert Sitwell, English writer (d. 1969)
 * December 7 – Max Ehrlich, German actor, screenwriter, and humor writer (d. 1944). One of the casualties of Auschwitz concentration camp.
 * December 8 – Bert Hinkler, Australian pioneer aviator (d. 1933)
 * December 12
 * Edward Almond, American general (d. 1979)
 * Herman Potočnik Noordung, Slovenian rocket engineer (d. 1929)
 * December 21 – Amy Key Clarke, English mystical poet (d. 1980)
 * December 27 – Alfred Edwin McKay, Canadian World War I flying ace (d. 1917)
 * December 29 – Emory Parnell, American actor (d. 1979)
 * December 31 – Stanley Price, American film and television actor (d. 1955)

Date unknown

 * Gerald Haxton, secretary and lover of W. Somerset Maugham (d. 1944)
 * V. Veerasingam, Ceylon Tamil teacher and politician (d. 1964)

January–June

 * January 8 – Christopher Raymond Perry Rodgers, American admiral (b. 1819)
 * January 12 – William Reeves, Irish antiquarian (b. 1815)
 * January 14 – Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, second in line for the throne of the United Kingdom (b. 1864)
 * January 21 – John Couch Adams, English astronomer (b. 1819)
 * January 31 – Charles Spurgeon, English preacher (b. 1834)
 * February 2 – Darinka Petrovic, Princess consort of Montenegro (d. 1838)
 * February 5 – Emilie Flygare-Carlén, Swedish novelist (b. 1807)
 * February 7 – Andrew Bryson, American admiral (b. 1822)
 * February 27 – Louis Vuitton, world-renowned French fashion designer (b. 1821)
 * March 13 – Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine (b. 1837)
 * March 16 – Samuel F. Miller, American politician (b. 1827)
 * March 26 – Walt Whitman, American poet (b. 1819)
 * April 4 – José María Castro Madriz, President of Costa Rica (b. 1818)
 * April 12 – Ogarita Booth Henderson, American stage actress, daughter of John Wilkes Booth (b.1859)
 * April 17 – Alexander Mackenzie, 2nd Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1822)
 * April 19 – Fr. Thomas Pelham Dale SSC, Anglo-Catholic clergyman prosecuted for Ritualist practices in the 1870s (b. 1821)
 * April 22 – Édouard Lalo, French composer (b. 1823)
 * April 25 – William Backhouse Astor, Jr., American businessman (b. 1830)
 * April 26 – Sir Provo William Perry Wallis, British admiral and naval hero (b. 1791)
 * May 5 – August Wilhelm von Hofmann, German chemist (b. 1818)
 * May 22 – Alexander Campbell, Canadian politician (b. 1822)
 * May 29 – Bahá'u'lláh, Persian founder of the Bahá'í Faith (b. 1817)
 * June 8 – Robert Ford, assassin of Jesse James (b. 1862)
 * June 9 – William Grant Stairs, Canadian explorer (b. 1863)

July–December

 * July 30 – Count Joseph Alexander Hübner, Austrian diplomat (b. 1811)
 * September 7 – John Greenleaf Whittier, American poet and abolitionist (b. 1807)
 * September 12 – John Cummings Howell, United States Navy admiral (b. 1819)
 * October 6 – Alfred, Lord Tennyson, British poet (b. 1809)
 * October 12 – Ernest Renan, French philologist and historian (b. 1823)
 * October 23 – Emin Pasha, German doctor and Governor of Equatoria (b. 1840)
 * October 24 – Mir-Fatah-Agha, Shiite cleric
 * October 25 – Caroline Harrison, First Lady of the United States (b. 1832)
 * December 2 – Jay Gould, American financier (b. 1836)
 * December 6 – Werner von Siemens, German inventor and industrialist (b. 1816)
 * December 11 – William Milligan, Scottish theologian (b. 1821)

Date unknown

 * Katherine Fox, American medium (b. 1837)
 * Charles Lafontaine, Swiss mesmerist (b. 1803)
 * Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, Tibetan teacher (b. 1820)