1873 - What happened in 1873 ?

January 1873

Friday 17:

First Battle of the Stronghold in the US Modoc War.

February 1873

Tuesday 11:

King Amadeus I of Spain abdicates.

Thursday 20:

The University of California opens its first medical school in San Francisco, California.

March 1873

Saturday 01:

Henry Comstock discovers the Comstock Lode in Virgina City, Nevada.

Monday 03:

Censorship: The U.S. Congress enacts the Comstock Law, making it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" books through the mail.

April 1873

Tuesday 01:

The British steamer SS Atlantic sinks off Nova Scotia killing 547.

Sunday 13:

Colfax Massacre

May 1873

Thursday 01:

The 1873 Vienna World's Fair opens in Vienna.

Monday 12:

Oscar II of Sweden-Norway is crowned King of Sweden.

Tuesday 20:

Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a US patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.

Friday 23:

The Canadian Parliament establishes the North West Mounted Police, the forerunner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

June 1873

Wednesday 18:

Susan B. Anthony is fined $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election

July 1873

Tuesday 01:

Prince Edward Island joins the Canadian Confederation.

Friday 18:

Oscar II of Sweden-Norway is crowned king of Norway in Trondheim

Saturday 19:

William Gosse becomes the first European to discover Ayers Rock (Uluru) and names it in honour of South Australian Premier Sir Henry Ayers.

Monday 21:

At Adair, Iowa, Jesse James and the James-Younger gang pull off the first successful train robbery in the American West.

Monday 28:

The Japanese government implements land and tax reform as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms.

August 1873

Monday 04:

Indian Wars: While protecting a railroad survey party in Montana, the United States 7th 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).

Saturday 30:

Austrian explorers Julius von Payer and Karl Weyprecht discover the archipelago of Franz Joseph Land in the Arctic Sea.

September 1873

Monday 01:

Cetshwayo ascends to the throne as king of the Zulu nation following the death of his father Mpande.

Monday 15:

Franco-Prussian War: The last German troops leave France upon completion of payment of indemnity.

Thursday 18:

The Panic of 1873 begins.

October 1873

Sunday 19:

Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Rutgers universities draft the first code of American football rules.

November 1873

Thursday 06:

The Halifax Rugby Club is formed.

December 1873

Friday 05:

In Boston, Massachusetts, Warren Avenue Baptist Church sexton Thomas Piper strangles and beats to death his first victim, Bridget Landregan (the press later dubbed the then unknown serial killer "The Boston Belfry Murderer").