July 26, 1931: International Bible Students Association changes name to Jehovah's WitnessesJuly 1, 1931: Wiley Post and Harold Gatty complete flight around the world in record 8 days and 16 hoursJuly 26, 1931: Royal wedding in Romania joins Princess Ileana of Romania and Archduke Anton of Habsburg-Bourbon
The following events occurred in July 1931:
July 1, 1931 (Wednesday)
Wiley Post and Harold Gatty completed their round-the-world flight in a record 8 days 16 hours.[1]
A fistfight broke out in the British House of Commons. It began when Labour MP John McGovern criticized the arrest of two Scottish preachers for holding meetings on the Glasgow Green without permits. McGovern refused to sit down when he was not satisfied with the Secretary of Scotland's reply, and remained standing even after being suspended. A half dozen attendants arrived and tried to pull McGovern out of the chamber by force, but they were attacked by three Labour MPs, James Maxton, John Beckett and John Kinley, and opposing MPs joined in. Proceedings were suspended for 19 minutes and the fight lasted until McGovern was finally dragged out of the chamber.[3]
Sidney Wood was declared the men's champion at Wimbledon by walkover when Frank Shields pulled out of the final due to a leg injury. Shields had wanted to play, but the U.S. Tennis Association ordered him to forfeit so he would be ready for the Davis Cup.[9]
July 4, 1931 (Saturday)
A monument to Woodrow Wilson sculpted by Gutzon Borglum was unveiled in Poznań, Poland in the presence of Edith Wilson and President Ignacy Mościcki.[10] It was destroyed by the Nazis in 1939[11] but a different Wilson monument stands today in Poznań in a park named for Wilson.[12]
The British cruisers HMS Dorsetshire and HMS Norfolk docked in the port of Kiel as part of Kiel Week, the first time British warships visited Germany since July 1914.[13]
Buddie Petit (stage name for Joseph Crawford), 41, American jazz cornetist
July 5, 1931 (Sunday)
A marble memorial to Gustav Stresemann was unveiled in Mainz. Foreign Minister Julius Curtius spoke at the ceremony, which was briefly interrupted by a Nazi who jumped up to the microphone and shouted "Germany awake!" before being arrested.[14]
Anti-Chinese rioting occurred in Pyongyang. Approximately 127 Chinese people were killed, 393 wounded, and a considerable number of properties were destroyed by Korean residents.[15]
A Norwegian royal proclamation was issued claiming the uninhabited part of eastern Greenland as Erik the Red's Land.[23]
Outdoor political rallies were banned in Bavaria due to frequent violence.[24]
Born:
Alice Munro, Canadian short-story author and 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate; in Wingham, Ontario, Canada (d. 2024)
Nick Adams (stage name for Nicholas Adamshock), American TV actor known for starring in the ABC western The Rebel; in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania (died of prescription drug overdose, 1968)
Died:F. W. Fitzpatrick, 68, Canadian-born American architect known for his advocacy of fireproofing buildings, died after being struck by a car
Born:Tab Hunter (stage name for Arthur Kelm), American film actor and singer, in New York City (d. 2018)
July 12, 1931 (Sunday)
In a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies, Mel Ott of the New York Giants hit his 100th career home run at the age of 22 years and 132 days. This still stands as the major league record for the youngest player to hit 100 homers.[28][29]
The German government shut down the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter for three weeks.[30]
The Danatbank in Germany failed, causing a run on all other leading banks in the country.[31]
The German government issued an emergency decree through Article 48 ordering all banks in the country closed down for 48 hours.[32] The German stock market was also shut down and ended up not reopening until September.[33]
July 14, 1931 (Tuesday)
The Hungarian government ordered all banks closed until Friday to protect Hungary from the German financial crisis.[32]
Banks throughout Germany reopened. The only withdrawals that were allowed were for shopkeepers to meet payrolls, and foreign currency exchanges were prohibited.[36][37]
In Rome, a bomb was discovered at St. Peter's Basilica by a janitor. It was moved to a nearby meadow where it exploded at 2 o'clock Friday morning.[38]
Charles Studd, 70, English Test cricketer, later a Christian missionary, died in the Belgian Congo
July 17, 1931 (Friday)
An accident occurred on the set of the film Scarface when some dynamite caps exploded prematurely, injuring four actors and bystander Gaylord Lloyd (Harold Lloyd's brother), who was struck in the right eye.[39]
Died: Dr. Nicolae Paulescu, 61, Romanian physiologist who patented the early diabetes treatment pancreine, an extract from the processing of insulin from cattle pancreas
July 18, 1931 (Saturday)
The German government issued several new decrees aimed at making foreign currency more difficult to acquire. A special visa was introduced that every German intending to cross the border was required to obtain for a fee of 100 Reichsmarks.[40][41]
Eleven people were killed in Bangalore, and 200 wounded, when police in British India fired into a crowd of demonstrators at the Binny Mills.[42]
July 20, 1931 (Monday)
A conference of seven powers (Great Britain, the United States, France, Italy, Japan, Belgium and Germany) met in London to discuss the economic situation in Germany.[43]
Died:Herbert Baddeley, 59, British tennis player and four-time winner of the men's doubles at Wimbledon (in 1891, 1894, 1895 and 1896)
July 21, 1931 (Tuesday)
The Heywood Broun-produced musical Shoot the Works opened at George M. Cohan's Theatre on Broadway. Broun himself sang, danced and acted in the show.[45]
Born:Gene Fullmer, American professional boxer, world middleweight champion in 1957, 1959 to 1962; in West Jordan, Utah (d. 2015)
July 22, 1931 (Wednesday)
Acting Governor of Bombay Sir Ernest Hotson survived an assassination attempt at Fergusson College in Pune. The first of two shots fired at point blank deflected off a metal stud on his clothes [46]
The London Conference broke off with little accomplished other than producing a request to world bankers to maintain their existing short-term credits to Germany.[48]
The United Kingdom transferred sovereignty over the uninhabited Ashmore and Cartier Islands to Australia, effective May 10, 1934.[23] The islands are the highest point on the Ashmore Reef and the Cartier Reef. The largest of them, West Island on the Ashmore Reef, has an area of 230 acres (93 ha) at low tide.
The German government announced the formation of a new bank, the "Acceptance and Guarantee Bank", which would make reserve cash available to all banks to assure them of money to meet possible bank runs.[51]
John Africa, the founder of MOVE, a Philadelphia-based, predominantly black organization active from the early 1970s to the present (killed in fire in 1985)
July 27, 1931 (Monday)
Ramsay MacDonald became the first British Prime Minister to visit Berlin since the end of World War I. "We are filled with admiration for Germany and we are firmly convinced that if she continues her efforts, if she asserts all her intellectual, moral and economic powers to get on her feet again, without giving way to despair, other nations will help her and not suffer her to go under", MacDonald said.[56]
Arriving in Warsaw after his visit to the Soviet Union, George Bernard Shaw said that other countries must follow the USSR's "remarkable example", saying, "Unlike the western politicians, who are working for their own benefit, the Russian rulers are working for the people and for their country. I am a confirmed communist, as I was before Lenin, and even more so after seeing communist Russia. Talk of forced labour in Russia is rubbish. There is more slavery in other countries." Shaw also described Stalin as "a most honest and able man."[61]
The Peruvian football club Defensor Lima was founded.
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^Pegler, Westbrook (July 4, 1931). "A Knockout! By Schmeling". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 1.
^Holdsen, Raymond (2005). The Virtuoso Conductors: The Central European Tradition from Wagner to Karajan. Yale University Press. p. 190. ISBN 978-0-300-09326-1.
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^"Withdraw From Wimbledon To Rest For Davis Cup?". World Tennis Magazine. June 30, 2011. Retrieved May 22, 2015.
^Nowinski, M. (July 5, 1931). "Poland Unveils Wilson Shaft; Widow Present". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 5.
^"Nazis in Poland Destroy Borglum Statue in Poland". Milwaukee Journal. Milwaukee: 1. November 9, 1931.
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^Wales, Henry (July 16, 1931). "German Banks to Open Today; Battle Rioters". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 1.
^Wales, Henry (July 17, 1931). "Shoot Rioters as Banks Pay Wage Checks". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 1.
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^"Italian Police, Vatican Join in Probe of Blast". Chicago Daily Tribune. July 18, 1931. p. 3.
^"Gang Film Actors Hurt by Explosion of Dynamite Caps". Chicago Daily Tribune. July 18, 1931. p. 3.
^Wales, Henry (July 19, 1931). "Berlin Decreees New Measures to Retain Cash". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 2.
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^"Riots in India Result in Eleven Deaths; 200 Hurt". Chicago Daily Tribune. July 20, 1931. p. 6.
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^Fitzpatrick, Kevin C. (2005). A Journey Into Dorothy Parker's New York. Berkeley: Roaring Forties Press. p. 79. ISBN 978-0-9777429-8-1.
