1872 in the United States

1872 in the United States
Years:	1869 1870 1871 – 1872 – 1873 1874 1875
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37 stars (1867–77)
Timeline of United States history History of the United States (1865–1918)

Events from the year 1872 in the United States.

Incumbents

President Ulysses S Grant by Matthew Brady c. 1870

Federal Government

• President: Ulysses S. Grant (Republican)
• Vice President: Schuyler Colfax (Republican)
• Chief Justice: Salmon P. Chase
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: James G. Blaine (R-Maine)
• Congress: 42nd

Events

Brigham Young, photo circa 1870

Clarence King (1842-1901) as a young man

• January 2 – Brigham Young is arrested for bigamy (25 wives).
• February 13 – Rex, the most famous parade on Mardi Gras, parades for the first time in New Orleans for Grand Duke Alexei Mikhailovich of Russia.
• February 20 – The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens in New York City.
• March 1 – Yellowstone National Park is established as the world's first national park
• March 5 – George Westinghouse patents the air brake for railways.
• March 26 – Earthquake at Lone Pine, California with an estimated Richter magnitude of 7.6 or greater.
• May 10 – Victoria Woodhull becomes the first woman nominated for President of the United States.
• May 22 – Reconstruction: President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Amnesty Act of 1872 into law restoring full civil rights to all but about 500 Confederate sympathizers.
• June 4 – Two men lead investors to land near the Wyoming-Colorado border claiming to have found diamonds there, starting a diamond craze in the western US (which is later revealed as a fraud).^[1]
• September 4 – The New York Sun breaks the story on the Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
• September 26 – The first Shriners Temple (called Mecca) is established in New York City.
• October 1 – The Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College begins its first academic session (the university is later renamed Virginia Tech).
• October 2 – Morgan State University founded.
• November – Ulysses S. Grant defeats Horace Greeley in the U.S. presidential election
• November 5 – Women's suffrage: In defiance of the law, suffragist Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time (on November 18 she was served an arrest warrant and in the subsequent trial she was fined $100 - she never paid the fine).
• November 7 – The Mary Celeste sets sail from New York, bound for Genoa.
• November 9 – Great Boston Fire of 1872: In Boston, Massachusetts, a large fire begins to burn on Lincoln Street. The two-day event destroyed about 65 acres (260,000 m²) of city, 776 buildings, much of the financial district and caused US$60 million in damage.
• November 28 – The geologist Clarence King uncovers the diamond hoax in Wyoming in The New York Times.^[2]
• November 29 – Indian Wars: The Modoc War begins with the Battle of Lost River.
• December 4 – The crewless American-owned ship Mary Celeste is found by the British brig Dei Gratia in the Atlantic.
• December 9 – P. B. S. Pinchback takes office as Governor of Louisiana, the first African American governor of a U.S. state.

Ongoing

William Bell, Perched Rock, western Arizona Territory, 1872 photo for Wheeler Survey

• Reconstruction era (1865–1877)
• Gilded Age (1869–c. 1896)
• The Wheeler Survey of the southwestern US, 1872–1879

Births

• January 31 – Zane Grey, writer (died 1939)
• March 14 – William Emerson Brock, United States Senator from Tennessee from 1929 till 1931. Died in 1950.
• April 23 – Nathan Philemon Bryan, United States Senator from Florida from 1911 till 1917. Died in 1935.
• July 4 – Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States from 1923 till 1929. 29th Vice President of the United States from 1921 till 1923. Died in 1933.
• July 8 – John H. Bankhead II, United States Senator from Alabama from 1931 till 1946. Died in 1946.
• August 26:
  • Joseph Taylor Robinson, United States Senator from Arkansas from 1913 till 1937. Died in 1937.
  • James J. Couzens, United States Senator from Michigan from 1922 till 1936. (died 1936)
• November 2 – John N. Heiskell, United States Senator from Arkansas in 1913. Died in 1972.
• December 9 – Thomas W. Hardwick, United States Senator from Georgia from 1914 till 1919. Died in 1944.

Deaths

• January 4 - Arnold Naudain, United States Senator from Delaware from 1830 till 1836. (born 1790)
• January 7 – James Fisk, entrepreneur. (born 1835)
• January 21 – Thomas Bragg, United States Senator from North Carolina from 1859 till 1861. (born 1810)
• February 7 – James W. Grimes, United States Senator from Iowa from 1859 till 1869. (born 1816)
• April 2 – Samuel Morse, inventor of the Morse code. (born 1791)
• September 18 - Augustus Seymour Porter, United States Senator from Michigan from 1840 till 1845. (born 1798)
• September 22 – Garrett Davis, United States Senator from Kentucky from 1861 till 1872. (born 1801)

References

External links

• Media related to 1872 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons