1931

**1931** (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday in the Gregorian calendar.

## Events

- January 27 – Pierre Laval forms a government in France
- February 16 – Pehr Evind Svinhufvud is elected president of Finland
- March 31 – An earthquake destroys Managua, Nicaragua, killing 2,000 people
- April 25 – The automobile manufacturer Porsche is founded by Ferdinand Porsche in Stuttgart
- May 1 – Construction of the Empire State Building is completed in New York City
- June 3 – Salvador Dalí's _The Persistence of Memory_ is put on display for the first time
- July 9 – Irish racing driver Kaye Don breaks the world water speed record at Lake Garda, Italy
- July 20 – A violent tornado strikes the city of Lublin, Poland.
- August – Warner Brothers releases the first Merrie Melodies cartoon
- September- The 1931 Belize hurricane strikes Belize (then British Honduras), killing over 2,500 people
- September 22 – The United Kingdom abandons the gold standard
- October 5 – American aviators Clyde Edward Pangborn and Hugh Herndon, Jr. complete the first non-stop flight across the Pacific Ocean. They travel from Misawa, Japan to East Wenatchee, Washington in 41½ hours.
- November 7 – The Chinese Soviet Republic is proclaimed by Mao Zedong
- December 10 – Niceto Alcalá-Zamora is elected president of the Spanish Republic

### January

- January 2 – Toshiki Kaifu, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 2022)
- January 13 – Charles Nelson Reilly, American actor (d. 2007)
- January 16 – Johannes Rau, President of Germany (d. 2006)
- January 22 – Sam Cooke, American singer (d. 1964)

### February

- February 1 – Iajuddin Ahmed, former President of Bangladesh (d. 2012)
- February 1 – Boris Yeltsin, President of Russia (d. 2007)

### April

- April 4 - Adeline Magloire Chancy, Haitian educator, feminist, and politician
- April 7 – Ted Kotcheff, Canadian-Bulgarian film director

### May

- May 19 – David Wilkerson, American pastor, evangelist and author (d. 2011)
- May 27 – Faten Hamama, Egyptian producer and actress (d. 2015)

### September

- September 12 – Sir Ian Holm, English actor
- September 12 – George Jones, American singer (d. 2013)
- September 29 – Anita Ekberg, Swedish actress (d. 2015)

### October

- October 19 – John le Carré, English novelist (d. 2020)
- October 19 – Rubens de Falco, Brazilian actor (d. 2008)
- October 20 – Mickey Mantle, American baseball player (d. 1995)

### November

- November 3 – Monica Vitti, Italian actress (d. 2022)
- November 15 – Mwai Kibaki, President of Kenya (d. 2022)

## Deaths

- January 23 – Anna Pavlova, Russian ballerina (b. 1881)
- February 11 – Charles Algernon Parsons, British inventor (b. 1854)
- February 26 – Otto Wallach, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1847)
- March 7 – Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Finnish painter (b. 1865)
- April 8 – Erik Axel Karlfeldt, Swedish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1864)
- April 26 – George Herbert Mead, American philosopher, sociologist and psychologist (b. 1863)
- May 9 – Albert Abraham Michelson, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1852)
- June 2 – Joseph W. Farnham, American screenwriter (b. 1884)
- July 12 – Nathan Söderblom, Swedish archbishop, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1866)
- August 26 – Hamaguchi Osachi, 27th Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1870)
- September 12 – Joseph Le Brix, French aviator and naval officer (b. 1899)
- October 21 – Arthur Schnitzler, Austrian author and dramatist (b. 1862)
- November 13 – Ivan Fichev, Bulgarian general, minister of defense, military historian, and academician (b. 1860)
- December 9 – Antonio Salandra, Italian statesman, 21st Prime Minister of Italy (b. 1853)
- December 27 – José Figueroa Alcorta, 16th President of Argentina (b. 1860)

## Nobel Prizes

- Nobel Prize in Physics – not awarded
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry won by Carl Bosch, German chemist and engineer, and Friedrich Bergius, German chemist
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine won by Otto Heinrich Warburg, German chemist, (1883 – 1970)
- Nobel Prize in Literature won by Erik Axel Karlfeldt, Swedish poet
- Nobel Peace Prize won by Jane Addams, American activist, and Nicholas Murray Butler, American philosopher, diplomat, and educator

## Movies released

- January 30 – _City Lights_ starring Charlie Chaplin
- February 9 – _Cimarron_ starring Richard Dix and Irene Dunne
- February 14 – The original movie version of _Dracula_ with Bela Lugosi is released in the United States
- December 26 – _A Free Soul_, winning Best Actor for Lionel Barrymore
- November 21 – _Frankenstein_ starring Boris Karloff, the top-grossing movie of the year
- December 12 – _Private Lives_ starring Norma Shearer
- December 26 – _Mata Hari_ starring Greta Garbo