1873

Events

January

• January 1
• * Japan adopts the Gregorian calendar.
• * The California Penal Code goes into effect.
• January 17 - American Indian Wars: Modoc War: First Battle of the Stronghold - Modoc Indians defeat the United States Army.

  February

• February 11 - The Spanish Cortes deposes King Amadeus I, and proclaims the First Spanish Republic.
• February 12
• * Emilio Castelar, the former foreign minister, becomes prime minister of the new Spanish Republic.
• * The Coinage Act of 1873 in the United States is signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant. Coming into effect on April 1, it ends bimetallism in the U.S., and places the country on the gold standard.
• February 20
• * The University of California opens its first medical school in San Francisco.
• * British naval officer John Moresby discovers the site of Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea, and claims the land for Britain.

  March

• March 3 - Censorship: The United States Congress enacts the Comstock Law, making it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" books through the mail.
• March 15 - The Phi Sigma Kappa student fraternity is founded at the Massachusetts Agricultural College.
• March 22 - Emancipation Day for Puerto Rico: Most slaves are freed.
• March 29 - The Rio Tinto Company is formed in Spain, following the February 17 purchase of the Rio Tinto Mine from the Spanish government by a British investment group.

  April

• April 1 - The British ocean liner sinks off Nova Scotia, killing 547 people.
• April 4 - The Kennel Club, the world's first kennel club, is founded in the United Kingdom.
• April 13 – Colfax massacre: More than 60 to 150 black men are murdered in Colfax, Louisiana, while surrendering to a mob of former Confederate soldiers and members of the Ku Klux Klan.
• April 15-17 - American Indian Wars: The Second Battle of the Stronghold is fought.
• April 19 - In Richmond, Rhode Island, 11 people perish in a train derailment, due to a bridge washout in the village of Richmond Switch.
• April 23 - Third Carlist War EVENTS IN MADRID, SPAIN -- Brigadier General Carmona confronts the insurgents at the Madrid bullring.

  May

• May 1 - The Vienna World's Fair opens in the capital of Austria-Hungary and runs for six months, closing on October 31.
• May 5 - Third Carlist War in Spain: Battle of Eraul - Carlists under General Dorregaray defeat Republicans at Eraul, near Estella.
• May 9
• * Der Gründerkrach: The Wiener Börse crash in Austria-Hungary ends the Gründerzeit, and heralds the global Panic of 1873 and Long Depression.
• * Third Carlist War: The Battle of Montejurra is fought at Navarra, Spain.
• May 20
• * Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive United States patent 139121, for using copper rivets to strengthen the pockets of denim work pants. Levi Strauss & Co. begins manufacturing the famous Levi's brand of jeans, using fabric from the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company in Manchester, New Hampshire.
• * In Chipping Norton, England, rioters attempt to free the Ascott Martyrs -16 women sentenced to imprisonment, for attempting to dissuade strikebreakers in an agricultural labor dispute.
• May 23
• * The Canadian Parliament establishes the North-West Mounted Police.
• * The Preakness Stakes horse race is run for the first time in Baltimore.
• May 27 - Classical archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovers Priam's Treasure.
• May 28
• * C. Laan brings order to the chaos created by the dockworker riots of Tripoli, Lebanon.
• * The city of Khiva in Turkestan falls to Imperial Russian forces, under the command of General Konstantin von Kaufman.
• 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.

  June

• June 4 - American Indian Wars: The Modoc War ends with the capture of Kintpuash.
• June 9 - Alexandra Palace entertainment venue in London is destroyed by fire, only a fortnight after its opening.

  July

• July 1 - Prince Edward Island joins the Canadian Confederation.
• July 5 - New Rush in Griqualand West, South Africa, is renamed Kimberley.
• July 9 -
• *Third Carlist War: Battle of Alpens - Campaigning in Catalonia, a government column under General José Cabrinetty is ambushed at Alpens, 15 miles east of Berga, by Carlist forces under General Francisco Savalls. After heavy fighting, with Cabrinety killed, virtually the entire column of 800 men is killed or captured.
• *The government of Otto von Bismarck in a united Germany introduces the gold mark, a unified currency to replace the various legal tender of the nation-states of the German Confederation..
• July 17 - Richard Southey becomes the first Lieutenant-Governor of Griqualand West.
• July 21 - At Adair, Iowa, Jesse James and the James–Younger Gang pull off the first successful train robbery in the American Old West.
• July 22 - Sir Benjamin Pine becomes Lieutenant-governor of the Colony of Natal.
• July - The end of the war between the United Kingdom and Ghana's King Kofi KariKari, who is involved in the trading of slaves, leads to the establishment of the Gold Coast Colony.

  August

• August 4 - American 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.
• August 12 - A peace treaty is signed between Imperial Russia and the Khanate of Khiva, making the khanate a Russian protectorate.
• August 30 - The Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition discovers Franz Josef Land.

  September

• September 15 - The International Meteorological Organization is established.
• 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 Ohio State University, opens its doors with 25 students, including 2 women.
• September 18 - The New York stock market crashes as the Jay Cooke & Company investment firm declares bankruptcy, triggering the Panic of 1873, part of the Long Depression.
• September 25 - Classes begin at Drury University in Springfield, Missouri.

  October

• October 2 - The British ship SS Ismailia, an Anchor Line steamer that departed from New York on September 30 with 52 people disappears while en route to Glasgow.
• October 29 - At Dresden, Albrecht I becomes new King Albrecht I of King of Saxony, an independent state within the German Empire, upon the death of his father King Johann, who had ruled since 1854.

  November

• November 7
• * Alexander Mackenzie becomes the second Prime Minister of Canada.
• * Third Carlist War: Battle of Montejurra - Determined to recapture the key city of Estella in Navarre, Spanish Republican General Domingo Moriones advances on the Carlists under General Joaquín Elío at nearby Montejurra. After very heavy fighting both sides claim victory, but Moriones withdraws, and Estella remains in Carlist hands. Don Carlos is present in the front line.
• November 17 - Budapest, Hungary's capital, is formed from Pest, Buda and Óbuda.
• November 18–21 - Irish Home Rule movement: The Home Government Association reconstitutes itself as the Home Rule League.
• November 22 -, on passage from New York to France, collides with Scottish 3-masted iron clipper Loch Earn in mid-Atlantic and sinks in 12 minutes with the loss of 226 lives.

  December

• December 15 - Women of Fredonia, New York, march against the retail liquor dealers in town, to inaugurate the Woman's Crusade of 1873–74.
• December 16 - The Heineken Brewery is founded in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
• December 19 - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's fantasia The Tempest, composed between August and October, is premiered, in Moscow.
• December 21 - French official Francis Garnier is attacked outside Hanoi by Black Flag mercenaries fighting for the Vietnamese.
• December 22 - Third Carlist War: Battle of Bocairente - Campaigning in Valenica, Spanish Republican General Valeriano Weyler is attacked at Bocairente, northwest of Alcoy, by a greatly superior Carlist force under General José Santés. Weyler is initially driven back, losing some of his guns, but in a brilliant counter-attack he turns defeat into victory, and Santés is heavily repulsed and forced to withdraw.
• December 23 - The Woman's Christian Temperance Union is founded, in Hillsboro, Ohio.
• December 27 - Third Carlist War: Siege of Bilbao - Campaigning in Navarre, Pretender Don Carlos VII and General Joaquín Elío besiege Bilbao, held by General Ignacio del Castillo and 1,200 men. The Carlist force is ten times this number, and includes most of the troops from Navarre, Vizcaya and Álava, although a considerable force is left in Guipúzcoa. Despite defeat at nearby Somorrostro, Republican commander Marshal Francisco Serrano, supported by Generals Manuel de la Concha and Arsenio Martínez-Campos, brilliantly breaks the siege, and Concha then marches on Estella.
• December - Major Walter Clopton Wingfield designs and patents a racquet sport, which he calls sphairistike, soon known simply as Stické and an ancestor of lawn tennis, for the amusement of his guests at a garden party on his estate of Nantclwyd, in Llanelidan, Wales.

  Date unknown

• The League of the Three Emperors is created. It links the conservative monarchs of Austria-Hungary, the German Empire and the Russian Empire in an alliance against radical movements.
• Founding in Canada of:
• * Toronto Argonauts, the oldest professional sports team still playing in North America.
• * Royal Montreal Club in Montreal, the first permanent golf club in North America.
• Liebig's Extract of Meat Company begins producing tinned corned beef, sold under the label Fray Bentos, from the town in Uruguay where it is processed.
• Coors Brewing Company begins making beer in Golden, Colorado.
• Konishiya Rokubei, predecessor of the Konica Minolta worldwide imaging brand, is founded in Tokyo, Japan.
• The Swedish arms company Aktiebolaget Bofors-Gullspång, better known as Bofors, is founded.
• In Mexico, the Veracruz–Mexico City railroad is completed.
• Nine Pekin ducks are imported to Long Island.
• The Married Woman's Property Rights Association is founded in Sweden.
• Demonstration of an electric tram operated on Miller's line at Sestroretsk near Saint Petersburg in the Russian Empire by inventor Fyodor Pirotsky.