1931
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 the Spanish Republic
May 1 - Construction of the Empire State Building is completed in New York City
May 4 - Kemal Atatürk re-elected president of Turkey
May 13 - Paul Doumer elected president of France
June 12 - Charlie Parker equals J.T. Hearne's record for the earliest date to reach 100 wickets.
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]
July 1 - Official opening of Milan Central Station
July 16 - Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia signs the first constitution of Ethiopia
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. 1982 )
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 )
July 12 - Nathan Söderblom , Swedish Nobel Peace Prize laureate
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
