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1931 is a common year starting on Thursday.
Events
January-March
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 Spanish republic
- May 1 - Construction of the Empire State Building is completed in New York City
- May 4 - Kemal Ataturk re-elected president of Turkey
- May 13 - Paul Doumer elected president of France
- 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] (http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Explorers_Record_Setters_and_Daredevils/Wiley_Post/EX27.htm)
- July 1 - Official opening of Milan Central Station
- 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
Undated
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. 1981)
- 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)
- 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
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