| 1845–1958 | Germany [earth sciences] | German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt lays the basis of modern geography with the publication of Kosmos/Cosmos, in which he arranges geographic knowledge in a systematic fashion. |
| 1892 | USA [food and drink] | US salesman William Wrigley starts selling chewing gum, previously given away free with other sales, as his main line. |
| 1892 | Canada [health and medicine] | Canadian physician William Osler publishes The Principles and Practice of Medicine, the most comprehensive and popular textbook on medicine of the time. |
| 1892 | Italy [opera] | The opera I pagliacci/The Clowns by the Italian composer Ruggiero Leoncavallo is first performed, in Milan, Italy. |
| 1892 | France [painting] | The French artist Paul Gauguin paints The Spirit of the Dead Watching. |
| 1892 | USA [painting] | The US artist Mary Cassatt paints The Bath. |
| 1892 | USA [philosophy] | The US philosopher William James publishes The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. |
| 1892 | Germany [physics] | German-born US electrical engineer Charles Proteus Steinmetz discovers the law of hysteresis, which, by explaining why all electrical devices lose power when magnetic action is converted to heat, allows engineers to improve the efficiency of electric motors, generators, and transformers through design, rather than trial and error. |
| 1892 | Germany [technology] | German inventor Hermann Ganswindt proposes using steel cartridges loaded with explosives to achieve escape velocity and leave the Earth. He is the first to link rockets and space flight. |
| 1892 | Germany [technology] | German engineer Rudolf Diesel patents the diesel engine, a new type of internal combustion engine that runs on oil. The engine works on the Otto cycle. Air is highly compressed and the heat generated ignites the oil in the cylinder. It proves more efficient than earlier prime movers. |
| 1892 | Russian Empire [ballet] | A new version of the ballet Shchelkunchik/Nutcracker by the Russian composer Peter Illyich Tchaikovsky is first performed, in St Petersburg, Russia. The choreography is by the Russian choreographer Lev Ivanovich Ivanov. |
| 1892 | Russia [biology] | Russian microbiologist Dimitry Iosifovich Ivanovsky publishes ‘On Two Diseases of Tobacco’ in which he announces that mosaic disease in tobacco is caused by micro-organisms too small to be seen through a microscope. |
| 1892 | France [chemistry] | French chemist Ferdinand-Frédéric Henri Moissan invents the first electric-arc furnace. He uses it to create many new compounds and to vaporize substances that had been considered to be impossible to melt. |
| 3 January 1892 | South Africa [births and deaths] | J(ohn) R(onald) R(euel) Tolkien, English novelist, known for his Lord of the Rings trilogy, born in Bloemfontein, South Africa (–1973). |
| 7 January 1892 | Egypt [administration] | At the age of 18, Abbas succeeds Tewfik as khedive of Egypt, ruling until 1914 and demonstrating hostility towards British influence. |
| 26 March 1892 | USA [births and deaths] | Walt Whitman, US journalist, essayist and poet, dies in Camden, New Jersey (72). |
| 6 June 1892 | Japan [administration] | The pro-Western Prince Hirobumi Ito becomes premier of Japan. |
| 23 July 1892 | Ethiopia [births and deaths] | Haile Selassie, Ethiopian emperor 1930–74, who modernizes the country but is deposed, born in Harer, Ethiopia (–1975). |
| 11 August 1892 | UK [administration] | Following electoral defeat in the British general election, the Conservative prime minister Lord Salisbury resigns and William Ewart Gladstone forms a Liberal ministry, with Lord Rosebery foreign secretary, William Harcourt chancellor of the Exchequer, and Herbert Asquith home secretary. |
| 8 November 1892 | USA [elections] | The Democrat Grover Cleveland wins the US presidential election with 277 electoral votes, on a platform opposing the McKinley Tariff and the Force Bill, while the Republican Benjamin Harrison wins 145 votes and the Populist James B Weaver 22. |
| 10 November 1892 | Central America, France [canals] | The Panama Canal financial scandal breaks in France and the canal's builder Ferdinand de Lesseps and his associates are committed for trial for corruption and mismanagement. |
| 25 November 1892 | France [Olympic Games] | The French educational reformer and social philosopher Pierre Fredi, Baron de Coubertin calls for a revival of the Olympic Games in a speech at the Sorbonne (University of Paris), France. |
| 4 December 1892 | Spain [births and deaths] | Francisco Franco, Spanish leader of the right-wing nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War 1936–39, then dictator for life, born in El Ferrol, Spain (–1975). |
