1931

1845–1958	Germany [earth sciences]	German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt lays the basis of modern geography with the publication of Kosmos/Cosmos, in which he arranges geographic knowledge in a systematic fashion.
1929–1935	United Kingdom [television]	Experimental television broadcasting begins in England.
1931	[toys and games]	Alfred Mosher Butts of Rhinebeck, New York, invents the word game Scrabble under the name Criss-Cross. The first sets do not go on sale until 1946, under the name Lexico. Two years later the name Scrabble is adopted.
1931	USA [transport]	The B-9 bomber, the progenitor of all modern combat aeroplanes, is produced by the Boeing Aircraft Company in the USA; it is the first twin-engine, all-metal bomber with retractable landing gear.
1931	USA [unions and associations]	In the USA, union membership declines to 3.3 million, down from a high of 5 million in 1920.
1931	[fiction]	The US writer Pearl Buck publishes her novel The Good Earth. A story about peasant life in China, it becomes the best-selling novel in the USA for two years. She receives a Pulitzer prize for it in 1932 and it contributes to her winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938.
1931	[fiction]	The US writer William Faulkner publishes his novel Sanctuary. Despite its subject matter – rape, murder, and a lynching – it is the first of his novels to achieve popular success.
1931	[fiction]	The English writer Virginia Woolf publishes her novel The Waves.
1931	[fiction]	The French writer and aviator Antoine Marie Roger de St-Exupéry publishes his second novel Vol de nuit/Night Flight.
1931	[fiction]	The Belgian-born French crime writer Georges Simenon publishes his first Maigret novel, Pietr-le-Letton/The Case of Peter the Lett.
1931	[historical study]	English historian Herbert Butterfield publishes The Whig Interpretation of History, a widely influential attack on the belief in inevitable progress in the course of history.
1931	United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada [international organizations]	The British Commonwealth of Nations is founded, reflecting the autonomy and equality of status of the Dominions (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada) with Britain.
1931	[maths]	Austrian mathematician Kurt Gödel publishes ‘Gödel's proof’ (On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems). His proof questions the possibility of establishing dependable axioms in mathematics, showing that any formula strong enough to include the laws of arithmetic is either incomplete or inconsistent.
c. 1931–c. 1940	[aircraft]	Aeroplanes undergo radical changes; they become streamlined, are made almost entirely of metal, acquire controllable-pitch propellers, have air-cooled engines and retractable landing gear, and passengers and crew are protected in soundproofed and insulated cabins.
1931	[painting]	The Spanish artist Salvador Dalí paints The Persistence of Memory, one of his best-known works.
1931	[philosophy]	US philosopher John Dewey publishes Philosophy and Civilization.
1931	[plays]	The play Mourning Becomes Electra, by the US writer Eugene O'Neill, is first performed, in the Guild Theater in New York City. Set in Puritan New England, it is a retelling of the Ancient Greek trilogy the Oresteia, by Aeschylus.
1931	China [political events]	The Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong establishes the Chinese Soviet Republic (Jianxi Soviet) in southeast China. Many of its social policies will be applied to the entire country after the communist takeover in 1949.
1931	USA [statistics and demography]	In the USA, unemployment figures reach 8 million.
c. 1931–c. 1940	[technology]	The development of facsimile machines is made possible with the discovery of a dry chemical copying process.
1 February 1931	[births and deaths]	Boris Yeltsin, Russian politician who was a prime force in the establishment of a new Commonwealth of Independent States to replace the USSR, born in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), Russia.
23 February 1931	[births and deaths]	Nellie Melba, Australian soprano, dies in Sydney, Australia (72).
1 March 1931	United Kingdom [political parties]	The former Labour Party member Oswald Mosley launches the New Party in Britain; the party is modelled on European authoritarian movements and advocates a much greater government role in job creation through reinflationary policies.
2 March 1931	[births and deaths]	Mikhail Gorbachev, Russian politician, president of USSR 1990–91 during the downfall of communism and the breakup of the Soviet Union, born in Stavropol Kray, Russia.
4 March 1931	India, UK [decolonization]	Under the terms of the Delhi pact between the Indian nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi and the British viceroy of India, Lord Irwin, the civil disobedience campaign organized by the Indian National Congress is suspended. The Congress Party promises to participate in the Round Table Conference on Indian constitutional reform in London, England, and political prisoners are released.
18 March 1931	USA [consumer products]	Schick Dry Shaver Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut, markets the first electric shavers.
14 April 1931	Spain [political events]	Following municipal elections in Spain, Niceto Alcalá Zamora, leader of a revolutionary committee in Madrid, successfully demands the abdication of Alfonso XIII. Alcalá Zamora becomes president of a provisional government.
30 April 1931	USA [architecture]	The Empire State Building is completed in New York City. Its designers are the architectural firm of Shreve, Lamb, and Harmon. It has 102 floors and soon becomes a symbol of the city. At 381m/1,250 ft, it remains the highest building in the world until 1972.
3 June 1931	[television]	The Epsom Derby horse race is the first sporting event to be televised in Britain.
20 June 1931	UK, USA [diplomacy]	US president Herbert Hoover proposes a moratorium on World War I reparations payments and inter-Allied debts in response to the worldwide economic depression; a London protocol is drawn up to formalize the moratorium.
26 July 1931	Chile [political events]	Colonel Carlos Ibáñez del Campo resigns as president of Chile owing to popular opposition to his repressive regime and the failure of his economic policies in the face of the worldwide depression, and flees to exile in Argentina.
August 1931	China [natural disasters]	One of the worst floods in history occurs when the Huang Ho River, China, overflows its banks; 3.7 million people die.
24 August 1931	United Kingdom [political events]	Ramsay MacDonald offers his resignation as Britain's prime minister after the Labour cabinet splits over policies for reducing unemployment, but the following day remains in office to lead a coalition. The Labour Party subsequently expels MacDonald, Philip Snowden, and J H Thomas, who serve with him.
18 September 1931	Japan, China [Sino–Japanese War (1933–40)]	Japanese troops occupy Mukden (now Shenyang), northeast China, and, joined by reinforcements, begin to expand throughout north Manchuria.
21 September 1931	United Kingdom [banking and finance]	Britain abandons the gold standard (the linking of the value of sterling to the Bank of England's gold reserves), signalling Britain's willingness to take economic decisions without regard to international finance.
7 October 1931	[births and deaths]	Desmond Tutu, South African Anglican bishop, a vigorous opponent of apartheid, born in Klerksdorp, South Africa.
18 October 1931	[births and deaths]	Thomas Alva Edison, prolific US inventor who invented the light bulb, phonograph, and motion picture projector, dies in West Orange, New Jersey (84).
November 1931	[technology]	RCA-Victor in the USA releases Beethoven's Fifth Symphony as the first long-playing record (33 ⅓ RPM compared to 78).
11 November 1931	United Kingdom [administration]	Ramsay MacDonald forms a second National Government in Britain, with Neville Chamberlain as chancellor of the Exchequer, John Simon as foreign secretary, and Stanley Baldwin, Conservative leader, as lord president of the council.
21 November 1931	USA [communications]	The American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) introduces the first telex service.
8 December 1931 - 1 January 1932	USA [banking and finance]	Departing from his laissez-faire philosophy, the US president, Herbert Hoover, asks Congress to create the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). Capitalized in January at $2 billion, the RFC will lend money to banks, railroads, insurance companies, and building and loan associations.
12 December 1931	UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Newfoundland [decolonization]	The British Parliament passes the Statute of Westminster, establishing the equality of Britain and its dominions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and Newfoundland.
16 December 1931	Spain [elections]	Niceto Alcalá Zamora, leader of the Liberal Republican Right, is elected president of Spain, and the left-wing Manuel Azaña is appointed prime minister.