by Daren & Vinny

1930   1931   1932   1933   1934   1935   1936   1937   1938   1939

 1931 was a significant year all around the world. One important event that took place in America was gambling was legalized in Nevada. Unfortunately the Great Depression was still active in this year. On December 11 the New York Bank of the US collapses. This caused a bank panic to spread across the nation. The US wheat crops break all records, which causes prices the price of wheat to go down. Many Kansas counties suspended taxes to help farmers survive. But elsewhere farmers are forced off the land as banks foreclosing on their mortgages. U.S. unemployment was over 8 million. Financial panic and economic depression took over most of the world. This was also the year that the  electric shaver and Alka Seltzer came out. In this year a man named Graf Zeppelin flew around the world. 

• March 31-Davis-Bacon Act Act becomes a law requiring a prevailing union wages to be paid on federal construction contracts.
• Knute Rockne dies in an airplane crash in Kansas March 31 at age 43. He was the head football coach at Notre Dame for 13 years and his teams won 105 games and tied 5 out of 122.
• On May 1, the 102 story Empire State Building building is dedicated.
• On September 10, US underworld boss Salvatore Maranzano is assassinated by Charles "Lucky" Luciano.
• Hoover Dam construction begins on September 30.
• Mobster Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years of prison on October 17. He was released in 1939.
• Thomas Edison dies in West Orange, New Jersey on October 18.
• New York's Chrysler Building opens at the corner of Lexington Avenue at 42 Street.
• St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series by defeating the Philadelphia Athletics 4 games to 3.
• Pearl Buck's novel The Good Earth is published.
• Jane Addam, a social worker and feminist, wins the Nobel Prize- first American women to win such a prize.
• Henry Urey discovers heavy water which is used to make the atomic bomb.
• The United States adopts Star Spangled Banner as its National Anthem.
• George Washington Bridge that links New York to New Jersey is opened to traffic.
• Jehovah's Witness adopt that name under the leadership of Joseph Franklin.

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last updated 12/04/05