1931 is a common year starting on Thursday.

Events

January-March

• January 4 - Female aviator 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 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.
• March 1 - Henry Pu Yi, former Emperor of China, is proclaimed King of the puppet state of Manchukuo by Japan.
• 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 31 - An earthquake destroys Managua, Nicaragua killing 2,000.

April-August

• April 1 - Earthquake destroys Managua, Nicaragua - over 2000 dead
• 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 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. [1]
• 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 occupied Manchuria.
• September 18 - Geli Raubal is found shot dead in Hitler's apartment
• 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 - Alcala Zamora elected president of Spanish republic

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.

Births

January

• January 4 - Adi Lady Lala Mara, Fijian chieftainess and former First Lady; widow of long-time former Prime Minister and President, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara (d. 2004).
• January 5 - Alvin Ailey, choreographer
• January 5 - Alfred Brendel, Austrian pianist
• January 5 - Robert Duvall, actor and director
• January 6 - E. L. Doctorow, author
• January 8 - Bill Graham, rock music entrepreneur (d. 1991)
• January 10 - Viktor Liebermann , violinist (d. 1999)
• January 10 - Peter Barnes, playwright and screenwriter (d. 2004)
• January 13 - Charles Nelson Reilly, actor
• January 14 - Caterina Valente , singer, actress
• January 16 - Johannes Rau, President of Germany
• January 17 - James Earl Jones, actor
• January 19 - Tippi Hedren, actress
• January 19 - Robert MacNeil, journalist
• January 22 - Sam Cooke, singer (d. 1964)
• January 27 - Mordecai Richler, author (d. 2001)
• January 30 - Allan W. Eckert, historian, naturalist and author
• January 31 - Ernie Banks, Baseball Hall of Famer

February-April

• February 1 - Boris Yeltsin, Russian president 1991-1999
• February 2 - Dries van Agt, Dutch politician
• February 6 - Rip Torn, actor, director
• February 8 - James Dean, actor (d. 1955)
• February 10 - Thomas Bernhard, author (d. 1989)
• February 11 - Larry Merchant, author/boxing commentator.
• February 18 - Toni Morrison, writer, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature 1993
• February 18 - Bob St. Clair, American football star
• February 18 - Johnny Hart, cartoonist
• February 28 - Dean Smith, NCAA basketball coach
• March 2 - Mikhail Gorbachev
• March 2 - Tom Wolfe, author
• March 11 - Rupert Murdoch, publisher, entrepreneur
• March 22 - William Shatner, (actor)
• March 26 - Leonard Nimoy, actor, director
• March 29 - Aleksei Gubarev, cosmonaut
• April 1 - Rolf Hochhuth, writer
• April 27 - Igor Oistrakh, Ukrainian violinist
• April 29 - Frank Auerbach, painter
• April 29 - Lonnie Donegan, musician (d. 2002)

May-August

• May 6 - Willie Mays, Baseball Hall of Famer
• May 7 - Teresa Brewer, singer
• May 13 - Jim Jones, cult leader (d. 1978)
• May 14 - Alvin Lucier, composer
• May 15 - Ken Venturi, golfer
• May 16 - Natwar Singh, politician
• May 18 - Robert Morse, actor
• May 19 - Eric Tappy, Swiss tenor
• May 20 - Ken Boyer, baseball player (d. 1982)
• May 25 - Georgi Grechko, cosmonaut
• May 31 - Shirley Verrett, American soprano
• June 3 - Lindy Remigino, American athlete
• June 7 - Malcolm Morley, painter
• July 1 - Leslie Caron, French actress
• July 10 - Alice Munro, Canadian writer
• July 26 - Fred Foster, founder of Monument Records
• August 12 - William Goldman, author
• August 19 - Bill Shoemaker, jockey (d. 2003)
• August 28 - John Shirley-Quirk, English bass-baritone
• August 31 - Jean Béliveau, Canadian ice hockey player

September-December

• September 22 - Fay Weldon, British feminist author
• September 22 - George Younger, 4th Viscount Younger of Leckie, British politician (d. 2003)
• September 23 - Gerald Stairs Merrithew, educator, statesman
• October 7 - Cotton Fitzsimmons, NBA basketball coach (d. 2004)
• October 7 - Desmond Tutu, South African Anglican Archbishop anti-apartheid activist
• October 13 - Eddie Mathews, Major League Baseball player (d. 2001)
• October 20 - Mickey Mantle, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1995)
• October 23 - Jim Bunning, Baseball Hall of Famer, U.S. Senator
• November 21 - Malcolm Williamson, composer (d. 2003)
• November 23 - Dervla Murphy, traveler, author
• November 28 - Hope Lange, American actress
• December 24 - Mauricio Kagel, composer

Deaths

• January 23 - Anna Pavlova, ballerina
• February 11 - Charles Algernon Parsons, British inventor of the steam turbine
• February 16 - Wilhelm von Gloeden, photographer
• March 7 - Akseli Gallén-Kallela, Finnish painter
• March 11 - F.W. Murnau, director
• March 31 - Knute Rockne, American football coach
• April 10 - Khalil Gibran Lebanese poet and painter
• May 14 - David Belasco, writer
• July 4 - Buddie Petit, jazz musician (b. ca. 1890)
• July 12 - Nathan Söderblom, Swedish Nobel Peace Prize laureate
• August 6 - Bix Beiderbecke, jazz trumpeter (b. 1903)
• August 27 - Frank Harris, author and editor
• October 13 - Ernst Didring, Swedish writer
• October 18 - Thomas Alva Edison, inventor
• December 2 - Vincent d'Indy, composer and teacher

Undated

• Joseph Tabrar, one of the most famous songwriters of British Music Hall.

Nobel Prizes

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