1872

1872 (MDCCCLXXII) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar, the 1872nd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 872nd year of the 2nd millennium, the 72nd year of the 19th century, and the 3rd year of the 1870s decade. As of the start of 1872, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	18th century – 19th century – 20th century
Decades:	1840s  1850s  1860s  – 1870s –  1880s  1890s  1900s
Years:	1869 1870 1871 – 1872 – 1873 1874 1875

1872 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	1872 MDCCCLXXII
Ab urbe condita	2625
Armenian calendar	1321 ԹՎ ՌՅԻԱ
Assyrian calendar	6622
Bahá'í calendar	28–29
Balinese saka calendar	1793–1794
Bengali calendar	1279
Berber calendar	2822
British Regnal year	35 Vict. 1 – 36 Vict. 1
Buddhist calendar	2416
Burmese calendar	1234
Byzantine calendar	7380–7381
Chinese calendar	辛未年 (Metal Goat) 4568 or 4508     — to — 壬申年 (Water Monkey) 4569 or 4509
Coptic calendar	1588–1589
Discordian calendar	3038
Ethiopian calendar	1864–1865
Hebrew calendar	5632–5633
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1928–1929
- Shaka Samvat	1793–1794
- Kali Yuga	4972–4973
Holocene calendar	11872
Igbo calendar	872–873
Iranian calendar	1250–1251
Islamic calendar	1288–1289
Japanese calendar	Meiji 5 (明治５年)
Javanese calendar	1800–1801
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 12 days
Korean calendar	4205
Minguo calendar	40 before ROC 民前40年
Nanakshahi calendar	404
Thai solar calendar	2414–2415
Tibetan calendar	ལྕགས་མོ་ལུག་ལོ་ (female Iron-Sheep) 1998 or 1617 or 845     — to — ཆུ་ཕོ་སྤྲེ་ལོ་ (male Water-Monkey) 1999 or 1618 or 846

Events

• Levi Strauss invents jeans.
• American department store Montgomery Ward opens for business.
• Huntington's disease is defined for the first time.
• University of Toledo founded in Toledo, Ohio

Births

• January 6 – Alexander Scriabin, Russian composer (d. 1915)
• May 18 – Bertrand Russell, English philosopher and logician (d. 1970)
• July 4 – Calvin Coolidge, thirtieth President of the United States (d. 1933)
• June 6 – Alexandra Fyodorovna, Empress of Russia, wife of Nicholas II (d. 1918)
• July 16 – Roald Amundsen, Norwegian polar explorer (d. 1928)
• August 21 – Aubrey Beardsley, English artist (d. 1898)
• October 12 – Ralph Vaughan Williams, English composer (d. 1958)
• October 15 – Edith Bolling Wilson, American First Lady, wife of Woodrow Wilson (d. 1961)
• November 30 – John McCrae, Canadian poet and soldier in World War I
• December 28 – Pio Baroja, Spanish writer (d. 1956)

Deaths

• January 21 – Franz Grillparzer, Austrian writer and poet (b. 1791)
• April 27 – Ion Heliade Rădulescu, Romanian writer and politician (b. 1802)
• June 4 – Johan Rudolf Thorbecke, Dutch politician (b. 1798)
• November 29 – Horace Greeley, American newspaper editor and politician (b. 1811)
• December 23 - George Catlin, American painter (b. 1796)

Date unknown

• Karolina Bock, Swedish dancer, actress and singer (b. 1792)
• Petros Duryan, Armenian poet (b. 1851)