1931 in the United States

1931 in the United States
Years:	1928 1929 1930 – 1931 – 1932 1933 1934
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48 stars (1912–59)
Timeline of United States history History of the United States (1918–45)

Events from the year 1931 in the United States.

Incumbents

Federal Government

• President: Herbert Hoover (R-California)
• Vice President: Charles Curtis (R-Kansas)
• Chief Justice: Charles Evans Hughes (New York)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Nicholas Longworth (R-Ohio) (until March 4), John Nance Garner (D-Texas) (starting December 7)
• Senate Majority Leader: James Eli Watson (R-Indiana)
• Congress: 71st (until March 4), 72nd (starting March 4)

Events

January–March

• January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics.
• January 6 – Thomas Edison submits his last patent application.
• February 20 – California gets the go-ahead by the U.S. Congress to build the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge.
• March 1 – The USS Arizona is placed back in full commission after a refit.
• March 3 – The Star-Spangled Banner is adopted as the United States national anthem.
• March 17 – Nevada legalizes gambling.
• March 25 – The Scottsboro Boys are arrested in Alabama and charged with rape.

April–June

May 1: Empire State Building completed

• April 15 – The Castellemmarese War ends with the assassination of Joe "The Boss" Masseria, briefly leaving Salvatore Maranzano as capo di tutti i capi ("boss of all bosses") and undisputed ruler of the American Mafia. Maranzano is himself assassinated less than 6 months later, leading to the establishment of the Five Families.
• April 18 – Cheverly, Maryland is incorporated.
• April 22 – Austria, Britain, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the USA recognize the Spanish Republic.
• May 1 – Construction of the Empire State Building is completed in New York City.
• June 19 – In an attempt to stop the banking crisis in Central Europe from causing a worldwide financial meltdown, President Herbert Hoover issues the Hoover Moratorium.
• 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–September

• July – John Haven Emerson of Cambridge, Massachusetts perfects the Emerson iron lung just in time for the growing polio epidemic.
• July 26 – The International Bible Students Association^[2] adopts the name Jehovah's Witnesses at a convention in Columbus, Ohio.

October–December

• October – The Caltech Department of Physics Faculty and graduate students meet with Albert Einstein as a guest.
• October 17 – American gangster Al Capone is sentenced to 11 years in prison for tax evasion in Chicago, Illinois.
• October 24 – The George Washington Bridge is dedicated; it opens to traffic the following day.
• December 12 – The Eta Chapter of Kappa Delta Phi is founded at The University of Maine at Machias.
• December 26 – Phi Iota Alpha, the oldest existing Latino fraternity, is founded.

Undated

• Deuterium is discovered by Harold Clayton Urey.
• The National Committee for Modification of the Volstead Act is formed to work for the repeal of prohibition in the United States.
• Elizabeth Dilling begins anti-communist activism.

Ongoing

• Lochner era (c. 1897–c. 1937)
• U.S. occupation of Haiti (1915–1934)
• Prohibition (1919–1933)
• Great Depression (1929–1933)
• Dust Bowl (1930–1936)

Births

• January 5
  • Alvin Ailey, choreographer (d. 1989)
  • Robert Duvall, actor and director
• January 6
  • Fern Battaglia, baseball player (d. 2001)
  • E. L. Doctorow, novelist (d. 2015)
• January 7 – Mack Mattingly, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1981 to 1987
• January 20
  • Preston Henn, businessman, founder of Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop
  • David Lee, physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1996
• January 27 – Red Bastien, wrestler, trainer and promoter (d. 2012)
• January 29 – Jim Baumer, baseball player and manager (d. 1996)
• February 18
  • Johnny Hart, cartoonist (d. 2007)
  • Toni Morrison, African American writer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993
  • Bob St. Clair, American football player
• February 24 – James Abourezk, U.S. Senator from South Dakota from 1973 to 1979
• March 22 – Burton Richter, physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1976
• March 24 – Connie Hines, actress (d. 2009)
• March 26 – Leonard Nimoy, actor and director (d. 2015)
• March 27 – David Janssen, actor (d. 1980)
• April 10 – James L. Dozier, U.S. Army officer
• April 26 – Ted Stanley, businessman and philanthropist (d. 2016)
• May 16 – Lowell P. Weicker, Jr., U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1971 to 1989
• May 28 – Carroll Baker, actress
• May 31
  • John Schrieffer, physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1972
  • Shirley Verrett, mezzo-soprano (d. 2010)
• June 1 – Hal Smith, baseball player and coach (d. 2014)
• June 2
  • William H. Donaldson, banker and businessman, co-founded Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette
  • Larry Jackson, baseball player and politician (d. 1990)
• July 4 – Rick Casares, American football player and soldier (d. 2013)
• August 12 – William Goldman, writer
• August 15
  • Joe Feeney, singer (d. 2008)
  • Richard F. Heck, chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2010 (d. 2015)
• August 23 – Hamilton O. Smith, microbiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1978
• September 2 – Alan K. Simpson, U.S. Senator from Wyoming from 1979 to 1997
• September 17 – Anne Bancroft, movie actress (d. 2005)
• September 29 – James Watson Cronin, nuclear physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1980
• October 23 – Jim Bunning, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1999 to 2011
• November 5 – Ike Turner, African American rock musician (d. 2007)
• December 20
  • Ike Skelton, lawyer and politician (d. 2013)
  • Terry Sanders, director, producer, and screenwriter
• December 27 – Scotty Moore, guitarist (d. 2016)
• December 30 – Skeeter Davis, country singer (d. 2004)

Deaths

• January 4
  • Art Acord, actor (born 1890)
  • Roger Connor, baseball player and MLB Hall of Famer (born 1857)
• January 14 – Hardy Richardson, baseball player (born 1855)
• January 22 – Alma Rubens, actress (born 1897)
• February 18 – Louis Wolheim, actor (born 1880)
• February 28
  • Laton Alton Huffman, photographer of the American frontier and Native American life (born 1854)
  • Thomas S. Rodgers, admiral (born 1858)
• March 20 – Joseph B. Murdock, United States Navy admiral and New Hampshire politician (born 1851)
• March 24 – Robert Edeson, actor (born 1868)
• March 25 – Ida Wells, African-American lynching crusader
• March 28 – Ban Johnson, baseball executive (born 1864)
• March 31 – Knute Rockne, football coach (born 1888)
• April 9 – Nicholas Longworth, politician, Speaker of the House (born 1869)
• April 26 – George Herbert Mead, philosopher (born 1863)
• May 2 – George Fisher Baker, financier and philanthropist (born 1840)
• May 14 – David Belasco, Broadway impresario, theater owner and playwright (born 1853)
• June 2 – Joseph Farnham, screenwriter (born 1884)
• August 6 – Bix Beiderbecke, jazz trumpeter (born 1903)
• August 27 – Francis Marion Smith, businessman (born 1846)
• September 17 – Marvin Hart, World Heavyweight Boxing Champion (born 1876)
• October 6 – Carrie Babcock Sherman, wife of James S. Sherman, Second Lady of the United States (born 1856)
• October 18 – Thomas Edison, inventor (born 1847)
• October 31 – Charles E. Rushmore, businessman, attorney, namesake of Mount Rushmore (born in 1857)
• November 4 – Buddy Bolden, African-American musician (born 1877)
• November 6 – Jack Chesbro, baseball player and MLB Hall of Famer (born 1874)
• December 5 – Vachel Lindsay, poet (born 1879)
• December 18 – Jack Diamond, gangster (born 1897)
• December 23 – Tyrone Power, Sr., actor (born 1869)
• December 26 – Melvil Dewey, librarian, inventor of Dewey Decimal Classification (born 1851)

See also

• List of American films of 1931

References

External links

• Media related to 1931 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons