1931

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

## Events 
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* 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 &ndash; 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

## Births 
### January 
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* 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 
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* February 1 – Iajuddin Ahmed, former President of Bangladesh (d. 2012)
* February 1 – Boris Yeltsin, President of Russia (d. 2007)

### March 
### 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)

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

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

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

## Nobel Prizes 
* Nobel Prize in Physics &ndash; 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

## References