Famous People Who Died In 1931

Described as America’s greatest inventor, Thomas Edison’s legacy is an everlasting one. He was the first to help make the incandescent light bulb commercially viable, even though he was not the first inventor of it. Quadruplex telegraph, phonograph, motion picture camera and the alkaline storage battery are some the many innovations that made him a worldwide phenomenon and an icon.

Bhagat Singh is one of the most revered freedom fighters of Indian Independence movement. His execution by the British rulers at a young age of 23 inspired many young people to join the freedom struggle. His life’s mission was to free India from colonial rule and his legacy as a symbol of bravery and patriotism continues to live on.

Lebanese author and poet Khalil Gibran is best remembered for his bestselling works The Prophet and Broken Wings. One of the leaders of the Mahjar movement of Arabic literature, he specialized in incorporating mythological and mystical symbols in his works and was inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche and William Blake.

One of the first ballerinas to travel extensively around the world, Anna Pavlova had first gained an interest in the dance form after watching an adaptation of The Sleeping Beauty. She initially gained fame dancing with Mikhail Mordkin and later made waves with her iconic role in The Dying Swan.

Nellie Melba was an Australian singer. One of the most popular singers of the early 20th century, Melba was the first Australian classical musician to achieve international recognition. Also known for her charity work during the First World War, Nellie Melba was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1918.

Chandra Shekhar Azad joined India’s freedom struggle against the British after being deeply affected by the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Born Chandra Shekhar Tiwari, he declared himself as Azad when arrested in connection with Gandhiji’s non-cooperation movement. He shot himself to death to escape being held captive by the British.

John Monash was an Australian military commander during World War I. He played a major role in the Gallipoli campaign, which took place from February 1915 to January 1916 on the Gallipoli peninsula. John Monash is widely regarded as the most popular commander in Australian history and one of the most prominent allied generals of World War I.

Daniel Hale Williams was a general surgeon known for performing the first documented, successful pericardium surgery in the US in 1893. Born to interracial parents, he faced numerous struggles in his journey to become a physician. He later founded the first non-segregated hospital in the United States, Chicago's Provident Hospital. He also founded a nursing school for African Americans. 

F. W. Murnau was a German film director best remembered for directing the 1922 silent horror film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, which is widely regarded as a masterpiece of German Expressionist cinema. He also made Hollywood films like Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, which is often counted among the best movies ever made by critics and film directors.

French social psychologist Gustave Le Bon is best remembered for his research on crowd psychology. In his iconic work La psychologie des foules, or The Crowd, he stated that people are driven by their emotions and not by their intellect when they act as part of a crowd.

Known as the Victor of the Marne and Papa Joffre, French military commander Joseph Joffre is remembered for his exploits at the Western Front during and after World War I. Following the German invasion of Verdun, he lost his command over the army and was made the Marshal of France.

American philosopher and social psychologist George Herbert Mead was one of the pioneers of pragmatism and symbolic interactionism. He taught at the University of Chicago, and his ideas later came to be known as the Chicago school of sociology. His notable lectures were published as books only after his death.

Born to a doctor, Arthur Schnitzler had initially followed in his father’s footsteps and practiced medicine, gaining expertise in psychiatry. He later made a mark as an author and playwright with works such as Anatol and None but the Brave, which became hallmarks of modernism and the decadent movement.

An American League co-founder Charles Comiskey, better known by his nickname Commy, was one of the early members of the St. Louis Brown Stockings. Though part of the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Chicago White Sox owner was dragged into a controversy when his team was involved in the Black Sox Scandal.

Painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela developed a love for the Finnish countryside as a child and later depicted the beauty of the Finnish landscape through his works. Chiefly known for his illustrations of the epic Kalevala, he merged many artistic concepts such as outdoor painting and symbolism.

Charles Studd was a British missionary and professional cricket player. He is credited with establishing the Heart of Africa Mission, which is now referred to as WEC International. As a cricketer, Charles Studd is remembered for playing in the 1882 match against Australia, which paved the way for the famous Ashes Test cricket series.

Eugène Ysaÿe was a Belgian virtuoso violinist, conductor, and composer. Referred to as The King of the Violin, Ysaÿe is best remembered for his finely honed technique which was without the shortcomings of violinists before Eugène Ysaÿe. He is also remembered for his great interpretations of Bach and Beethoven as well as early modern composers like César Franck.

Known for his pathbreaking research on the hormone insulin, Romanian physiologist Nicolae Paulescu was also a professor of medicine. He had a tiff with the Nobel Prize committee on their decision to award two other scientists for the discovery of insulin. His anti-Semitic writings influenced the Iron Guard movement.

Copley Medal-winning engineer Charles Algernon Parsons revolutionized marine transport with his invention of a multi-stage steam turbine. His other inventions include a mechanical reducing gear. Apart from being named a Fellow of the Royal Society, he was also knighted and awarded an Order of Merit for his contributions.

Daniel Chester French was an American sculptor best remembered for designing the iconic monumental statue of Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C. He is also credited with designing the Pulitzer Prize gold medal along with H. Augustus Lukeman in 1917. Daniel Chester French also founded or co-founded many organizations like the National Sculpture Society (NSS) and the American Academy in Rome.

Carl Nielsen was a Danish violinist, composer, and conductor. He is widely regarded as the most important Danish composer of all time. Nielsen also taught music at the Royal Academy and served as its director in 1931. Thanks to his teaching career, he has had considerable influence on Denmark's classical music. Among his pupils were Thorvald Aagaard and Harald Agersnap. 

One of the pioneering figures of the Dutch art movement De Stijl, or The Style, Theo van Doesburg stressed on the importance of simplified and geometric visual arts. The son of a photographer, he grew up to create scores of abstract paintings and designed aesthetic room décor and furniture, too.

Popularly known as Snowflake Bentley, US meteorologist and photographer Wilson Bentley had taken the world’s first detailed photographs of snowflakes and had thus pioneered snowflake photomicrography. He thus laid the foundation of the study of atmospheric ice crystal formation. Hailing from a farming family, he spent his entire life on his farm.

Armand Fallières began as a town councillor in Nérac and later became the president of France. Prior to this, he had been the prime minister of France, too, but he was forced to resign after just 21 days, owing to his stand on the expulsion of the pretenders to French throne.

Industrialist Shishaku Shibusawa Eiichi is remembered as one of the pioneers of capitalism in Japan. Born into a peasant family, he grew up to become a government official and brought about major reforms in the Meiji period. He founded the First National Bank and also invested in industries such as paper and mining.

Otto Wallach was a German chemist best remembered for winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1910. He won the award for his work on alicyclic compounds. Wallach is also remembered for developing the Wallach rearrangement, the Leuckart-Wallach reaction, Wallach degradation, and Wallach's rule. In 1912, Otto Wallach was honored with the prestigious Davy Medal.

Best remembered for his portraits, Irish artist Sir William Orpen was an official war artist for Britain during World War I and the official artist of the Paris Peace Conference. His initial paintings were largely inspired by Realist artist Édouard Manet. Though knighted later, he was posthumously criticized as flimsy.

Apart from being a prominent lawyer, Motilal Nehru was also an eminent freedom fighter and the father of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister. Born after his father’s death, he grew up amid financial difficulties. He later led the Indian National Congress as a two-time president.