Information Please: 1931

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Year by Year: 1900-2008	View a 1931 calendar

World Events

population by decade

Nobel Peace Prize:
Jane Addams and Nicholas M. Butler (US)

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Spain becomes a republic with the overthrow of King Alfonso XIII.
British parliament enacts the Statute of Westminster, legalizing dominion equality with Britain.
Mukden Incident begins Japanese occupation of Manchuria.
The planned capital of New Delhi opens in India.

President: Herbert C. Hoover
Vice President: Charles Curtis
Population: 124,039,648

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Gangster Al Capone sentenced to 11 years in prison for tax evasion (freed in 1939; dies in 1947).
Scottsboro trial begins, exposing depth of Southern racism.
�The Star Spangled Banner� officially becomes national anthem. Background: Francis Scott Key

Federal spending:   $3.58 billion
Consumer Price Index:   15.2
Unemployment:   16.3%
Cost of a first-class stamp:   $0.02

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St. Louis Cardinals d. Philadelphia A's (4-3)

Montreal d. Chicago (3-2)

Women: Cilly Aussem d. H. Kranwinkel (6-2 7-5)
Men: Sidney Wood d. F. Shields (walkover)

Twenty Grand

USC (10-1-0)

Pulitzer Prizes
Fiction: Years of Grace, Margaret Ayer Barnes
Drama: Alison's House, Susan Glaspell

Oscars awarded in 1931
Academy Award, Best Picture: Cimarron (RKO Radio)

Nobel Prize for Literature: Erik A. Karlfeldt (Sweden)

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Chemistry: Karl Bosch and Friedrich Bergius (both Germany), for invention and development of chemical high-pressure methods

Physics: None awarded

Physiology or Medicine: Otto H. Warburg (Germany), for discovery of the character and mode of action of the respiratory ferment

General Motors's Frigidaire makes refrigerators safe for household use.
Karl Jansky begins the science of radio astronomy as he observes interference in the form of hissing sounds coming from beyond the earth's atmosphere.
Harold Urey discovers heavy water, water that contains deuterium, a rare hydrogen isotope.
An electron microscope is developed by Vladimir Zworykin and James Hillier.