1931

Decades: 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s - 1930s - 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s

Years: 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 - 1931 - 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936

Events:

• Elijah Muhammad meets W.D. Fard, in Detroit

• 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
• February 10 - New Delhi becomes the capital of India
• February 20 - California gets the go-ahead by the United States 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 3 - "The Star-Spangled Banner" is adopted as the United States National anthem.
• 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 14 - 2nd Spanish Republic proclaimed in Spain
• July 1 - Official opening of Milan Central Station
• Deuterium discovered by Harold Clayton Urey.
• Construction of the Empire State Building is completed in New York City.
• The Castellemmarese War ends with the assasination 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 assasinated less than 6 months later, leading to the establishment of the Five Families

Art, Culture & Fashion

• 1931 in film
  • January 26 - Cimarron, starring Richard Dix and Irene Dunne opens in New York City.
  • November 21 - Frankenstein, starring Boris Karloff
• 1931 in literature
• 1931 in music
• 1931 in sports
• 1931 in television
  • May 1 - The first wedding is broadcast on television, on New York's W2XCR.
  • July 21 - CBS's New York station begins broadcasting the first regular seven days a week television schedule in the U. S.. The first broadcast included Mayor James J. Walker, Kate Smith, and George Gershwin.
  • October 30 - NBC installs a television transmitter on top of the Empire State Building
  • December 22 - NBC begins broadcasting from the Empire State Building transmitter
  • Canada's first television station, VE9EC, begins broadcasting in Montreal

Births:

• January 5 - Alvin Ailey, choreographer
• January 5 - Alfred Brendel, 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 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 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
• 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 29 - Frank Auerbach, painter
• April 29 - Lonnie Donegan, musician (d. 2002)
• 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 18 - Robert Morse, actor
• May 20 - Ken Boyer, baseball player (d. 1981)
• May 25 - Georgi Grechko, cosmonaut
• 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 31 - Jean Béliveau, Canadian ice hockey player
• September 23 - Gerald Stairs Merrithew, educator, statesman
• October 13 - Eddie Mathews, Major League Baseball player (d. 2001)
• 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 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
• August 6 - Bix Beiderbecke, jazz trumpeter
• August 27 - Frank Harris, author and editor
• October 13 - Ernst Didring, swedish writer
• October 18 - Thomas Edison, inventor
• December 2 - Vincent d'Indy, composer and teacher
• Wilhelm von Gloeden, photographer
• 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

Referenced By