* 1875 – The Treaty of Saint Petersburg between Japan and Russia is ratified, providing for the exchange of Sakhalin for the Kuril Islands.

* 1875 – Katharine McCormick, American biologist, philanthropist, and activist ( d. 1967 )

* 1875 – Albert Ketèlbey, English conductor, composer, and pianist ( d. 1959 )

Albert Schweitzer, OM ( 14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965 ) was a German and then French theologian, organist, philosopher, physician, and medical missionary.

* 1875 – Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Russian painter ( d. 1957 )

Aleister Crowley ( ; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947 )| deadurl = no

* Sir William Buell Richards ( Chief Justice ) – September 30, 1875

* Télesphore Fournier – September 30, 1875

* William Alexander Henry – September 30, 1875

* Sir William Johnstone Ritchie – September 30, 1875

* Sir Samuel Henry Strong – September 30, 1875

* Jean-Thomas Taschereau – September 30, 1875

Franciszek Bujak ( 1875 – 1953 ) and Jan Rutkowski ( 1886 – 1949 ), the founders of modern economic history in Poland and of the journal Roczniki Dziejów Spolecznych i Gospodarczych ( 1931 – ), were attracted to the innovations of the Annales school.

* 1875 – Artur Bernardes, Brazilian politician, 12th President of Brazil ( d. 1955 )

* 1875 – Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, English composer ( d. 1912 )

* 1875 – Stjepan Seljan, Croatian explorer ( d. 1936 )

* Albert I of Belgium ( 1875 – 1934 ), third King of the Belgians

* 1875 – Captain Matthew Webb became the first person to swim across the English Channel, traveling from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in 22 hours.

Andrew Johnson ( December 29, 1808 July 31, 1875 ) was the 17th President of the United States ( 1865 – 1869 ).

* 1875 – William Eccles, English physicist ( d. 1966 )

* 1875 – Eugene Lanceray, Russian painter and sculptor ( d. 1946 )

* Alfons Karpiński ( 1875 – 1961 ), Polish painter

* 1805 – Hans Christian Andersen, Danish writer ( d. 1875 )

Karl Andree ( 20 October 1808 – 10 August 1875 ) was a German geographer.

René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (; 4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926 ), better known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was a Bohemian-Austrian poet.

* October 20 – Karl Andree, German geographer ( d. 1875 )

Carl Jung was born Karl Gustav II Jung in Kesswil, in the Swiss canton of Thurgau, on 26 July 1875, as the fourth but only surviving child of Paul Achilles Jung and Emilie Preiswerk.

Verner's law, stated by Karl Verner in 1875, describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby voiceless fricatives * f, * þ, * s, * h, * hʷ, when immediately following an unstressed syllable in the same word, underwent voicing and became respectively the fricatives * b, * d, * z, * g, * gʷ.

* Karl Kuhn, head waiter in a restaurant, born 7 July 1875.

Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt ( 12 December 1875 – 24 February 1953 ) was a German Field Marshal ( Generalfeldmarschall ) during World War II.

His brothers were Karl Otfried Müller ( 1797 – 1840 ), an archeologist and philologist, and Eduard Müller ( 1804 – 1875 ), a philologist.

His son, Karl Friedrich von Savigny ( 1814 – 1875 ), was Prussian minister of foreign affairs in 1849.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels attribute the doctrine to Lassalle ( notably in Critique of the Gotha Programme ( 1875 ), Marx ), crediting the idea to Thomas Malthus in his work, An Essay on the Principle of Population, and the terminology to Goethe's " great, eternal iron laws " in Das Göttliche.

In 1875, Karl Marx wrote of " Labor Certificates " ( Arbeitszertifikaten ) in his Critique of the Gotha Program of a " certificate from society that labourer has furnished such and such an amount of labour ", which can be used to draw " from the social stock of means of consumption as much as costs the same amount of labour.

* 1875 – 1877: Karl Schenk

Karl Trübner, Straßburg 1875 ( Göttinger Digitalisierungszentrum )

Later came Peter Cornelius ( Der Barbier von Bagdad, 1858 ), Hermann Goetz ( Der Widerspänstigen Zähmung, 1874 ) and Karl Goldmark ( Die Königin von Saba, 1875 ).

Otto Karl Gessler ( or Geßler ) ( February 6, 1875 – March 24, 1955 ) was a German politician during the Weimar Republic.

* Karl Theophil Fries ( 1875 – 1962 ) German chemist discoverer of the Fries rearrangement

Johann Karl Rodbertus ( August 12, 1805, Greifswald, Swedish Pomerania – December 6, 1875, Jagetzow ), also known as Karl Rodbertus-Jagetzow, was a German economist and socialist of the scientific or conservative school from Greifswald.

Karl Gottlieb Mauch ( May 7, 1837-April 4, 1875 ) Stuttgart was a German explorer and geographer of Africa.

The term was first applied as laccolite by Grove Karl Gilbert after his study of intrusions of diorite in the Henry Mountains of Utah in about 1875.

Karl von Schmidt ( January 12, 1817 – August 25, 1875 ) was a Prussian cavalry general.

* Karl August Nerger ( 1875 – 1947 ), naval officer of the Imperial German Navy in World War I

Meanwhile Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels joined the German Social-Democratic Party, which had been created in 1875, but which was outlawed in 1879 by the German government, then led by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who deemed it to be a political threat due to its revolutionary nature and increasing number of supporters.

In his 1964 presidential address to the Linguistic Society of America, American linguist Charles Hockett considered Syntactic Structures one of " only four major breakthroughs in modern linguistics ", alongside Sir William Jones's address to the Asiatic Society in 1786, Karl Verner's Eine Ausnahme der ersten Lautverschiebung in 1875 and Ferdinand de Saussure's Cours de Linguistique Générale in 1916.