1931

1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday in the Gregorian calendar, the 1931st year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 931st year of the 2nd millennium, the 31st year of the 20th century, and the 2nd year of the 1930s decade.

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	19th century – 20th century – 21st century
Decades:	1900s  1910s  1920s  – 1930s –  1940s  1950s  1960s
Years:	1928 1929 1930 – 1931 – 1932 1933 1934

1931 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	1931 MCMXXXI
Ab urbe condita	2684
Armenian calendar	1380 ԹՎ ՌՅՁ
Assyrian calendar	6681
Bahá'í calendar	87–88
Balinese saka calendar	1852–1853
Bengali calendar	1338
Berber calendar	2881
British Regnal year	21 Geo. 5 – 22 Geo. 5
Buddhist calendar	2475
Burmese calendar	1293
Byzantine calendar	7439–7440
Chinese calendar	庚午年 (Metal Horse) 4627 or 4567     — to — 辛未年 (Metal Goat) 4628 or 4568
Coptic calendar	1647–1648
Discordian calendar	3097
Ethiopian calendar	1923–1924
Hebrew calendar	5691–5692
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1987–1988
- Shaka Samvat	1852–1853
- Kali Yuga	5031–5032
Holocene calendar	11931
Igbo calendar	931–932
Iranian calendar	1309–1310
Islamic calendar	1349–1350
Japanese calendar	Shōwa 6 (昭和６年)
Javanese calendar	1861–1862
Juche calendar	20
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 13 days
Korean calendar	4264
Minguo calendar	ROC 20 民國20年
Nanakshahi calendar	463
Thai solar calendar	2473–2474
Tibetan calendar	阳金马年 (male Iron-Horse) 2057 or 1676 or 904     — to — 阴金羊年 (female Iron-Goat) 2058 or 1677 or 905

Events

Ferdinand Porsche holding a steering wheel

• 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

Births

January

Toshiki Kaifu

Johannes Rau

Sam Cooke

• 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

Iajuddin Ahmed

Boris Yeltsin

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

April

• 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

Ian Holm

George Jones

Anita Ekberg

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

October

John le Carré

Rubens de Falco

Mickey Mantle

• 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

Monica Vitti

Mwai Kibaki

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

Deaths

Anna Pavlova

• 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

Norma Shearer

• 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