1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1931 calendar).

Events

January-February

• January 4 - Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa
• January 6 - Thomas Edison submits his last patent application.
• January 22 - Sir Isaac Isaacs sworn in as the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia
• January 25 - Mohandas Gandhi released again
• January 27 - Pierre Laval forms a government in France
• February 3 - Napier earthquake - much of the New Zealand city of Napier is destroyed in an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale
• February 10 - New Delhi becomes the capital of India
• February 16 - Pehr Evind Svinhufvud elected president of Finland
• February 20 - California gets the go-ahead by the U.S. Congress to build the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
• February 21 - Peruvian revolutionaries hijack a Ford Trimotor aeroplane and demand that the pilot drop propaganda leaflets over Lima

March-April

• March 1 - USS Arizona (BB-39) placed back in full commission after a refit
• March 3 - The Star-Spangled Banner is adopted as the United States National anthem.
• March 4 - British viceroy of India and Mohandas Gandhi negotiate
• March 7 - New House of Representatives opened in Helsinki, Finland
• March 17 - Nevada legalizes gambling
• March 25 - The Scottsboro Boys are arrested in Alabama and charged with rape.
• March 27 - British writer Arnold Bennet dies in Paris when he drinks local water to prove it safe to drink - but is poisoned
• March 31 - An earthquake destroys Managua, Nicaragua killing 2,000.
• April 6 - Portuguese government declares martial law in Madeira and in the Azores because of an attempted military takeover in Funchal
• April 9 - Execution of Argentinean anarchist Severino Digiovanni
• April 14 - 2nd Spanish Republic proclaimed in Spain
• April 22 - Austria, Britain, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Sweden and USA recognize the Spanish Republic

May-August

• May 1 - Construction of the Empire State Building is completed in New York City
• May 4 - Kemal Atatürk re-elected president of Turkey
• May 13 - Paul Doumer elected president of France
• June 12 - Charlie Parker equals J.T. Hearne's record for the earliest date to reach 100 wickets.
• June 14 - Yacht St Philiebert sinks in river Loire in France - over 500 drown
• June 23 - Wiley Post and Harold Gatty take off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island in an attempt to accomplish the first round-the-world flight in a single-engine plane. ^*
• July 1 - Official opening of Milan Central Station
• July 16 - Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia signs the first constitution of Ethiopia
• Huang He floods kill between 850,000 and 4,000,000 people - the most deadly historic natural disaster.
• August 24 - Labour Government of Ramsay MacDonald resigns in Britain - replaced by National Government of people drawn from all parties also under MacDonald.
• August 31 - Yangtze River floods - 23 million made homeless

September-December

• September 5 - John Thomson, soccer player, dies in an accident during a Celtic - Rangers match
• September 15 - The Invergordon Mutiny: Strikes in Royal Navy due to decreased salaries
• September 18 - Mukden Incident. After that, Japan uses it to occupy Manchuria.
• September 18 - Geli Raubal is found shot dead in Hitler's apartment
• November 7 - Chinese People's Republic proclaimed by Mao Tse Tung.
• November 8 - French gendarmes launch a large scale raid against Corsican bandits
• November 8 - Panama Canal closed for couple of weeks due to damage caused by a number of earthquakes
• December 10 - Niceto Alcalá-Zamora elected president of Spanish republic
• December 26 - Phi Iota Alpha, the oldest existing Latino fraternity is founded.

Undated

• Deuterium discovered by Harold Clayton Urey.
• The Castellemmarese War ends with the assassination of Joe "The Boss" Masseria, briefly leaving Salvatore Maranzano as capo di tutti capi, "boss of all bosses" and undisputed ruler of the American mafia. Maranzano is himself assassinated less than 6 months later, leading to the establishment of the Five Families
• Ust-Abakanskoye becomes Abakan.
• National Committee for Modification of the Volstead Act formed to work for repeal of prohibition in United States.
• Serta, the mattress manufacturer, is founded.

Births

January

• January 5 - Alvin Ailey, American choreographer (d. 1989)
• January 5 - Alfred Brendel, Austrian pianist
• January 5 - Robert Duvall, American actor and director
• January 6 - E. L. Doctorow, American author
• January 8 - Bill Graham, German concert promoter (d. 1991)
• January 10 - Peter Barnes, English playwright and screenwriter (d. 2004)
• January 13 - Charles Nelson Reilly, American actor
• January 14 - Caterina Valente, French singer and actress
• January 16 - Johannes Rau, President of Germany (d. 2006)
• January 17 - James Earl Jones, American actor
• January 19 - Robert MacNeil, Canadian journalist
• January 20 - David Lee, American physicist, Nobe Prize laureate
• January 22 - Sam Cooke, American singer (d. 1964)
• January 27 - Mordecai Richler, Canadian author (d. 2001)
• January 30 - Allan W. Eckert, American historian, naturalist, and author
• January 31 - Ernie Banks, baseball player

February

• February 1 - Boris Yeltsin, President of Russia
• February 2 - Dries van Agt, Dutch politician
• February 6 - Rip Torn, American actor and director
• February 8 - James Dean, American actor (d. 1955)
• February 10 - Thomas Bernhard, Dutch author (d. 1989)
• February 11 - Larry Merchant, author and boxing commentator
• February 18 - Johnny Hart, American cartoonist
• February 18 - Toni Morrison, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate
• February 18 - Bob St. Clair, American football star
• February 24 - Brian Close, British cricket player
• February 26 - Ally McLeod, Scottish football manager
• February 28 - Dean Smith, American basketball coach

March

• March 2 - Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the Soviet Union, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
• March 2 - Tom Wolfe, American author
• March 11 - Rupert Murdoch, Australian-born publisher
• March 22 - Burton Richter, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• March 22 - William Shatner, Canadian actor
• March 26 - Leonard Nimoy, American actor and director
• March 29 - Aleksei Gubarev, cosmonaut

April

• April 1 - Rolf Hochhuth, German writer
• April 9 - Larry Gluck, American painter
• April 27 - Igor Oistrakh, Ukrainian violinist
• April 29 - Frank Auerbach, German-born painter
• April 29 - Lonnie Donegan, Scottish musician (d. 2002)

May

• May 6 - Willie Mays, baseball player
• May 7 - Teresa Brewer, American singer
• May 13 - Jim Jones, American cult leader (d. 1978)
• May 14 - Alvin Lucier, American composer
• May 15 - Ken Venturi, American golfer
• May 16 - Natwar Singh, Indian politician
• May 18 - Robert Morse, American actor
• May 19 - Eric Tappy, Swiss tenor
• May 20 - Ken Boyer, baseball player (d. 1982)
• May 25 - Georgi Grechko, cosmonaut
• May 31 - John Robert Schrieffer, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• May 31 - Shirley Verrett, American mezzo-soprano

June

• June 3 - Lindy Remigino, American athlete
• June 7 - Malcolm Morley, English-born painter
• June 9 - Joe Santos, American actor
• June 20 - Martin Landau, American actor
• June 27 - Martinus J. G. Veltman, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

July

• July 1 - Leslie Caron, French actress
• July 4 - Stephen Boyd, Northern Irish actor (d. 1977)
• July 10 - Alice Munro, Canadian writer
• July 26 - Fred Foster, American songwriter and record producer

August

• August 12 - William Goldman, American author
• August 15 - Joe Feeney, American singer, The Lawrence Welk Show
• August 18 - Bramwell Tillsley, the 14th General of The Salvation Army
• August 19 - Willie Shoemaker, American jockey (d. 2003)
• August 23 - Hamilton O. Smith, American microbiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• August 25 - Regis Philbin, American television personality
• August 28 - John Shirley-Quirk, English bass-baritone
• August 31 - Jean Béliveau, Canadian hockey player

September

• September 17 - Anne Bancroft, American actress (d. 2005)
• September 21 - Larry Hagman, American actor
• September 22 - Fay Weldon, British author
• September 22 - George Younger, 4th Viscount Younger of Leckie, British politician (d. 2003)
• September 23 - Gerald Stairs Merrithew, Canadian educator and statesman (d. 2004)
• September 29 - James Watson Cronin, American nuclear physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• September 29 - Anita Ekberg, Swedish actress
• September 30 - Angie Dickinson, American actress
• September 30 - Wesley L. Fox, U.S. Marine Corps officer

October

• October 6 - Riccardo Giacconi, Italian-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• October 7 - Cotton Fitzsimmons, American basketball coach (d. 2004)
• October 7 - Desmond Tutu, South African Anglican archbishop and activist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
• October 13 - Eddie Mathews, baseball player (d. 2001)
• October 20 - Mickey Mantle, baseball player (d. 1995)
• October 23 - Jim Bunning, baseball player and U.S. Senator
• October 23 - Diana Dors, English actress (d. 1984)
• October 25 - Jimmy McIlroy, Northern Irish footballer and football manager
• October 31 - Dan Rather, American television news reporter

November

• November 15 - Mwai Kibaki, Kenya's third president
• November 21 - Malcolm Williamson, Australian composer (d. 2003)
• november 21 - Revaz Dogonadze, Georgian phisicist (d. 1985)
• November 23 - Dervla Murphy, Irish author
• November 26 - Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Argentine activist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
• November 28 - Hope Lange, American actress (d. 2003)

December

• December 23 - Ronnie Schell, American actor
• December 24 - Mauricio Kagel, Argentine composer
• December 30 - Skeeter Davis, Ameircan singer (d. 2004)
• December 31 - Bob Shaw, Northern Irish science fiction writer (d. 1996)

Month/day unknown

• Joseph A. Califano, Jr., American politician

Deaths

• January 11 - James Milton Carroll, Baptist pastor, leader, historian, and author (b. 1852)
• January 14 - Hardy Richardson, baseball player (b. 1855)
• January 22 - Alma Rubens, American actress (b. 1897)
• January 23 - Anna Pavlova, Russian ballerina (b. 1881)
• February 11 - Charles Algernon Parsons, British inventor (b. 1854)
• February 16 - Wilhelm von Gloeden, German photographer (b. 1856)
• February 26 - Otto Wallach, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1847)
• March 5 - Arthur Tooth, Anglican clergyman prosecuted for Ritualist practices in the 1870s (b. 1839)
• March 7 - Akseli Gallén-Kallela, Finnish painter (b. 1865)
• March 11 - F.W. Murnau, German director (b. 1888)
• March 20 - Hermann Müller, Chancellor of Germany (b. 1876)
• March 21 - Bhagat Singh, Indian revolutionary (b. 1908)
• March 31 - Knute Rockne, American football coach (b. 1888)
• April 8 - Erik Axel Karlfeldt, Swedish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1864)
• April 10 - Khalil Gibran Lebanese poet and painter (b. 1883)
• April 30 - Sammy Woods, English cricketer (b. 1867)
• May 9 - Albert Abraham Michelson, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1852)
• May 14 - David Belasco, American writer (b. 1853)
• July 4 - Buddie Petit, American jazz musician
• July 12 - Nathan Söderblom, Swedish archbishop, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1866)
• August 6 - Bix Beiderbecke, American jazz trumpeter (b. 1903)
• August 26 - Hamaguchi Osachi, 27th Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1870)
• August 27 - Frank Harris, Irish author and editor (b. 1856)
• August 27 - Francis Marion Smith, American borax magnate (b. 1846)
• October 13 - Ernst Didring, Swedish writer (b. 1868)
• October 18 - Thomas Edison, American inventor (b. 1847)
• November 11 - Shibusawa Eiichi, Japanese industrialist (b. 1840)
• December 2 - Vincent d'Indy, French composer (b. 1851)

Undated

• Joseph Tabrar, British songwriter (b. 1857)
• Dame Nellie Melba, Soprano Singer (b. 1861)

Nobel prizes

• Physics - not awarded
• Chemistry - Carl Bosch, Friedrich Bergius
• Physiology or Medicine - Otto Heinrich Warburg
• Literature - Erik Axel Karlfeldt
• Peace - Jane Addams, Nicholas Murray Butler

1931

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