Events of 1931

January–February

• January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics.

• January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa.

• January 6 – Thomas Edison submits his last patent application.

• January 22 – Sir Isaac Isaacs is sworn in as the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia.

• January 25 – Mohandas Gandhi is released again in India.

• January 27 – Pierre Laval forms a government in France.

• January 30 – The release of the movie City Lights starring Charlie Chaplin.

• February 3 – Hawke's Bay 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 12 – Radio Vaticana first broadcasts.

• February 14 – The original film version of Dracula with Bela Lugosi is released.

• February 16 – Pehr Evind Svinhufvud is 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.

February 10: New Delhi became capital.

February 21: Ford Trimotor hijacked.

March–April

• March 1 – The USS Arizona is placed back in full commission after a refit.

• March 3 – The Star-Spangled Banner is adopted as the United States National anthem.

• March 4 – The British viceroy of India and Mohandas Gandhi negotiate.

• March 7 – The new House of Representatives opens in Helsinki, Finland.

• March 11 – The Ready for Labour and Defence of the USSR programme, abbreviated as GTO, is introduced in the Soviet Union.

• March 17 – Nevada legalizes gambling.

• March 23 – Indian revolutionary leaders Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev are hanged by the British Government.

• March 25 – The Scottsboro Boys are arrested in Alabama and charged with rape.

• March 27 – British writer Arnold Bennett dies in Paris when he drinks local water to prove it is safe to drink, but is poisoned.

• March 31 – An earthquake destroys Managua, Nicaragua, killing 2,000 people.

• April 6 – The Portuguese government declares martial law in Madeira and in the Azores because of an attempted military takeover in Funchal.

• April 9 – Argentinian anarchist Severino Digiovanni is executed.

• April 14 – The Second Spanish Republic is proclaimed in Madrid.

• April 15 – The Castellemmarese War ends with the assassination of Joe "The Boss" Masseria, briefly leaving Salvatore Maranzano as capo di tutti i 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.

• April 18 – Cheverly, Maryland is incorporated.

• April 22 – Austria, Britain, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the USA recognize the Spanish Republic.

May–June

May 1: Empire State Building is completed.

• May 1 – Construction of the Empire State Building is completed in New York City.

• May 4 – Kemal Atatürk is re-elected president of Turkey.

• May 11 The Creditanstalt, Austria's largest bank, goes bankrupt, beginning the banking collapse in Central Europe that causes a worldwide financial meltdown.

• May 13 – Paul Doumer is elected president of France.

• June 5 – German Chancellor Dr. Heinrich Brüning visits London, where he warns the British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald that the collapse of the Austrian banking system, caused by the bankruptcy of the Creditanstalt, has left the entire German banking system on the verge of collapse.

• June 12 – Charlie Parker equals J.T. Hearne's record for the earliest date to reach 100 wickets.

• June 14 – The overloaded pleasure craft Saint-Philibert, carrying trippers home to Nantes from Île de Noirmoutier, sinks at the mouth of the river Loire in France; over 450 drown.

• June 19 -In an attempt to stop the banking crisis in Central Europe from causing a worldwide financial meltdown, President Herbert Hoover issues the Hoover Moratorium.

• 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–August

• July – John Haven Emerson of Cambridge, Massachusetts perfects the Emerson iron lung just in time for the growing polio epidemic.

• July 1 – Milan Central Station officially opens in Italy.

• July 16 – Emperor Haile Selassie signs the first constitution of Ethiopia.

• The Huang He floods kill between 850,000 and 4,000,000 people (the deadliest historic natural disaster).

• July 26 – The millennialist Bible Student movement adopts the name Jehovah's Witnesses at a meeting in Columbus, Ohio.

• August 24 – The Labour Government of Ramsay MacDonald resigns in Britain, replaced by a National Government of people drawn from all parties, also under MacDonald.

• August 31 – The Yangtze River floods, leaving 23 million homeless.

September–October

• September 5 – John Thomson, soccer player, dies in an accident during a Celtic–Rangers match.

• September 10 – The worst hurricane in Belize history kills an estimated 1,500 people.

• September 15 – Invergordon Mutiny: Strikes are called in the Royal Navy due to decreased salaries.

• September 16 – Hanging of Omar Mukhtar.

• September 18

• *Japan stages the Mukden Incident as a pretext to occupy Manchuria.

• *Geli Raubal is found shot dead in Hitler's apartment.

• October – The Caltech Department of Physics Faculty and graduate students meet with Albert Einstein as a guest.

• October 17 – American gangster Al Capone is sentenced to 11 years in prison for tax evasion in Chicago, Illinois.

• October 24 – The George Washington Bridge is dedicated; it opens to traffic the following day.

November–December

• November 6 – Indian spiritual leader Meher Baba arrives in America for the first time.

• November 7 – The Chinese Soviet Republic is proclaimed by Mao Zedong.

• November 8

• *French police launch a large scale raid against Corsican bandits.

• *The Panama Canal is closed for a couple of weeks due to damage caused by a number of earthquakes.

• December 8 – Carl Friedrich Goerdeler is appointed Reich Price Commissioner in Germany to enforce the deflationary policies of the Brüning government.

• December 10 – Niceto Alcalá-Zamora is elected president of the Spanish Republic.

• December 11 – The British Parliament enacts the Statute of Westminster, which establishes a status of legislative equality between the self-governing dominions of the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of Canada, the Irish Free State, Newfoundland, the Dominion of New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa.

• December 12 – The Eta Chapter of Kappa Delta Phi is founded at The University of Maine at Machias.

• December 13 – Wakatsuki Reijiro resigns as Prime Minister of Japan.

• December 26 – Phi Iota Alpha, the oldest existing Latino fraternity, is founded.

Undated

• Deuterium is discovered by Harold Clayton Urey.

• Ust-Abakanskoye becomes Abakan.

• The National Committee for Modification of the Volstead Act is formed to work for the repeal of prohibition in the United States.

• The Persistence of Memory is put on display for the first time in Paris at the Galerie Pierre Colle.

Ongoing

• Rise of the Nazi Party

Births

January–February

• January 5

• *Alvin Ailey, American choreographer (d. 1989)

• *Alfred Brendel, Austrian pianist

• *Robert Duvall, American actor and director (THX 1138)

• 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 12 – Roland Alphonso, Jamaican musician (d. 1998)

• January 13 – Charles Nelson Reilly, American actor (d. 2007)

• January 14 – Caterina Valente, French singer and actress

• January 16 – Johannes Rau, President of Germany (d. 2006)

• January 17 – James Earl Jones, African-American actor (Roots: The Next Generations)

• January 18 – Chun Doo-hwan, President of South Korea

• January 19

• *Robert MacNeil, Canadian journalist (MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour)

• *Pat Hunt, retired New Zealand politician from the National Party

• January 20 – David Lee, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

• January 22 – Sam Cooke, American singer (You Send Me) (d. 1964)

• January 26 – Alfred Lynch, English actor (d. 2003)

• January 27 – Mordecai Richler, Canadian author (d. 2001)

• January 29 – Ferenc Madl, President of Hungary

• January 30 – Allan W. Eckert, American historian, naturalist, and author

• January 31 – Ernie Banks, American baseball player

• February 1 – Boris Yeltsin, President of Russia (d. 2007)

• February 2

• *Dries van Agt, Dutch politician, Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 1977 until 1982

• *Les Dawson, British comedian (d. 1993)

• February 6

• *Mamie Van Doren, American actress and author

• *Rip Torn, American actor and director

• February 8 – James Dean, American actor (Rebel Without A Cause) (d. 1955)

• February 9 – Thomas Bernhard, Dutch author (d. 1989)

• February 11 – Larry Merchant, American author and boxing commentator

• February 13 – Geoff Edwards, American actor and game show host

• February 16

• *George E. Sangmeister, American politician (d. 2007)

• *Ken Takakura, Japanese actor

• February 18 – Johnny Hart, American cartoonist (B.C.) (d. 2007)

• February 18 – Toni Morrison, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate

• February 18 – Bob St. Clair, American football player

• February 24 – Brian Close, British cricketer

• February 25 – Eric Edgar Cooke, Western Australian Murderer (d. 1964)

• February 26 – Ally McLeod, Scottish football manager

• February 28

• *Gavin MacLeod, American actor and Christian activist (The Love Boat)

• *Dean Smith, American basketball coach

March–April

• March 2

• *Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the Soviet Union, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize

• March 4

• *Wally Bruner, American journalist and television host (d. 1997)

• *William Henry Keeler, American Roman Catholic Archbishop and Cardinal

• *Alice Rivlin, American economist

• March 8 – Neil Postman, American media theorist and cultural critic

• March 11 – Rupert Murdoch, Australian-born publisher

• March 20 – Hal Linden, American actor and singer

• March 22

• *Burton Richter, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

• *William Shatner, Canadian actor (Star Trek)

• March 26 – Leonard Nimoy, American actor and director (Star Trek)

• March 29

• *Aleksei Gubarev, Russian cosmonaut

• *Norman Tebbit, British politician

• April 1

• *Rolf Hochhuth, German writer

• *Ita Ever, Estonian actress

• April 6 – Suchitra Sen (Roma Dasgupta), legendary Bengali actress

• April 11 – Luis Cabral, Guinea-Bissauan President (d. 2009)

• *Johnny Sheffield, American actor

• April 15 – Helen Maksagak, Canadian, first Inuk and woman to be the Commissioner of both the Northwest Territories and Nunavut (d. 2009)

• April 27 – Igor Oistrakh, Ukrainian violinist

• April 29

• *Frank Auerbach, German-born painter

• *Lonnie Donegan, Scottish musician (Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor On The Bedpost Overnight?) (d. 2002)

May–June

• May 6 – Willie Mays, African-American baseball player

• May 7 – Teresa Brewer, American pop and jazz singer (d. 2007)

• May 13

• *Jim Jones, American cult leader (People's Temple) (d. 1978)

• *Jiri Petr, Czech university president

• May 14 – Alvin Lucier, American composer

• May 15

• *Joseph A. Califano, Jr., Chairman of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse

• *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, American baseball player (d. 1982)

• May 25 – Georgi Grechko, Russian cosmonaut

• May 28 – Carroll Baker, American actress

• May 30 – Fr. John O'Brien, Irish priest and musician (d. 2008)

• May 31

• *John Robert Schrieffer, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

• *Shirley Verrett, American mezzo-soprano

• June 3 – Lindy Remigino, American athlete

• June 3 – Raul Castro, President of Cuba

• June 7 – Malcolm Morley, English-born painter

• June 9 – Jackie Mason, American comedian

• June 9 – Joe Santos, American actor

• June 10 – João Gilberto, Brazilian musician

• June 13 – Moysés Baumstein, Brazilian holographer and artist

• June 14 – Ross Higgins, Australian actor

• June 27 – Martinus J. G. Veltman, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

July–August

• July 1 – Leslie Caron, French actress

• July 2 – Robert Ito, Canadian actor (Quincy, M.E.)

• July 4 – Stephen Boyd, Irish actor (d. 1977)

• July 5 – Ismail Mahomed, South African and Namibian Chief Justice (d. 2000)

• July 6 – Della Reese, American singer and actress (Touched By An Angel)

• July 7 – David Eddings, American novelist (d. 2009)

• July 10

• *Nick Adams, American actor (d. 1968)

• *Alice Munro, Canadian writer

• July 15 – Clive Cussler, American author

• July 23 – Te Atairangi Kaahu, Māori Queen (d. 2006)

• July 26 – Fred Foster, American songwriter and record producer

• July 27 – Jerry Van Dyke, American comedian and actor

• August 7 – Charles E. "Charlie" Rice, American legal scholar and author

• August 12 – William Goldman, American author

• August 15

• *Joe Feeney, American singer (d. 2008)

• *Florian ZaBach, American musician and TV personality (d. 2006)

• August 18 – Bramwell Tillsley, 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

• *Hal Fishman, Los Angeles based local news anchor (d. 2007)

• *Regis Philbin, American television personality (Live With Regis And Kelly)

• August 28 – John Shirley-Quirk, English bass-baritone

• August 30 – Jack Swigert, American astronaut (d. 1982)

• August 31

• *Noble Willingham, American actor (Walker, Texas Ranger) (d. 2004)

• *Jean Béliveau, Canadian hockey player

• *Kenny Burrell, American jazz musician

September–October

• September 1

• *Cecil Parkinson, British politician

• *Javier Solis, Mexican ranchera & bolero singer (d. 1966)

• September 8 – Jack Rosenthal, English playwright (d. 2004)

• September 12

• *Ian Holm, British actor

• *George Jones, American country music singer and songwriter

• September 17 – Anne Bancroft, American actress (d. 2005)

• September 21 – Larry Hagman, American actor (Dallas)

• September 22

• *Fay Weldon, British author

• *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

• *Anita Ekberg, Swedish actress

• September 30

• *Angie Dickinson, American actress (Police Woman)

• *Wesley L. Fox, U.S. Marine Corps officer

• October 6 – Riccardo Giacconi, Italian-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

• October 7

• *Cotton Fitzsimmons, American basketball coach (d. 2004)

• *Desmond Tutu, South African Anglican archbishop and activist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize

• October 13 – Eddie Mathews, baseball player (d. 2001)

• October 15 – Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam, President of India

• October 16

• *James Chace, American historian (d. 2004)

• *Charles Colson, American Watergate conspirator

• *Rosa Rosal, Filipino actress and humanitarian

• October 17 – Ernst Hinterberger, Austrian writer

• October 19 – John le Carré, English novelist

• October 20 – Mickey Mantle, American baseball player (d. 1995) Morris Cerullo, American Televangelist

• October 23

• *Jim Bunning, American baseball player and U.S. Senator

• *Diana Dors, English actress (d. 1984)

• October 25 – Jimmy McIlroy, Irish footballer and football manager

• October 31 – Dan Rather, American television news reporter (60 Minutes)

November–December

• November 3

• *Monica Vitti, Italian actress

• *Michael Fu Tieshan, Chinese bishop (d. 2007)

• November 5 – Ike Turner, African-American singer and songwriter (d. 2007)

• November 15 – Mwai Kibaki, third President of Kenya

• November 21

• *Malcolm Williamson, Australian composer (d. 2003)

• *Revaz Dogonadze, Georgian physicist (d. 1985)

• November 23 – Dervla Murphy, Irish author

• November 26 – Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Argentine activist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize

• December 1

• *Jimmy Lyons, American musician (d. 1986)

• *Jim Nesbitt, American country music singer (d. 2007)

• December 2

• *Edwin Meese, American attorney general

• *Nigel Calder, British science writer

• December 11 – Rita Moreno, Academy award–winning Puerto Rican actress (West Side Story)

• December 12 – Lionel Blair, British actor, choreographer, tap dancer, headmaster and TV presenter

• December 23 – Ronnie Schell, American actor

• December 24 – Mauricio Kagel, Argentine composer (d. 2008)

• December 30 – Skeeter Davis, American singer (The End of the World) (d. 2004)

• December 31 – Bob Shaw, Irish writer (d. 1996)

Deaths

January–June

• January 3 – Joseph Joffre, French World War I general (b. 1852)

• January 4

• *Art Acord, American actor (b. 1890)

• *Louise, Princess Royal and Duchess of Fife, British royal, eldest daughter of Edward VII (b. 1867)

• January 11 – James Milton Carroll, Baptist pastor, 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 18 – Louis Wolheim, American actor (b. 1880)

• February 23 – Dame Nellie Melba, Australian soprano (b. 1861)

• February 26 – Otto Wallach, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1847)

• March 5 – Arthur Tooth, Anglican clergyman (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 24 – Robert Edeson, American actor (b. 1868)

• March 25 – Ida Wells,African-American lynching crusader.

• March 27 – Arnold Bennett, English novelist (b. 1867)

• March 28 – Ban Johnson, American baseball executive (b. 1864)

• March 31 – Knute Rockne, American football coach (b. 1888)

• April 8 – Erik Axel Karlfeldt, Swedish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1864)

• April 9 – Nicholas Longworth, American politician, Speaker of the House (b. 1869)

• April 10 – Khalil Gibran, Lebanese poet and painter (b. 1883)

• April 20 – Cosmo Duff-Gordon, British baronet and Titanic survivor (b. 1862)

• April 26 – George Herbert Mead, American philosopher (b. 1863)

• 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)

• June 2 – Joseph Farnham, American screenwriter (b. 1884)

• June 4 – Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, Arab nationalist

July–December

• 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 15 – Nigar Shikhlinskaya, Azerbaijani World War I nurse (b. ca. 1878)

• August 26 – Hamaguchi Osachi, 27th Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1870)

• August 27

• *Frank Harris, Irish author and editor (b. 1856)

• *Francis Marion Smith, American businessman (b. 1846)

• September 5 – John Thomson, Scottish footballer (b. 1909)

• September 16 – Omar Mukhtar, the leader of Libyan resistance (b. 1862?)

• October 13 – Ernst Didring, Swedish writer (b. 1868)

• October 18 – Thomas Edison, American inventor (b. 1847)

• November 4 – Buddy Bolden, African-American musician (b. 1877)

• November 11 – Shibusawa Eiichi, Japanese industrialist (b. 1840)

• December 2 – Vincent d'Indy, French composer (b. 1851)

• December 5 – Vachel Lindsay, American poet (b. 1879)

• December 18 – Jack Diamond, American gangster (b. 1897)

• December 23 – Tyrone Power, Sr., American actor (b. 1869)

• December 26 – Melvil Dewey, American librarian, inventor of Dewey Decimal Classification (b. 1851)

• date unknown – Joseph Tabrar, British songwriter (b. 1857)

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

Ship events

• List of ship launches in 1931

• List of ship commissionings in 1931

• List of ship decommissionings in 1931

• List of shipwrecks in 1931

See also

• 20th century