List of Famous people who died in 1931

Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman who has been described as America's greatest inventor. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, which include the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb, have had a widespread impact on the modern industrialized world. He was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of organized science and teamwork to the process of invention, working with many researchers and employees. He established the first industrial research laboratory.

Bhagat Singh was an Indian socialist revolutionary whose two acts of dramatic violence against the British in India and execution at age 23 made him a folk hero of the Indian independence movement.

Lili Ilse Elvenes, better known as Lili Elbe, was a Danish painter and transgender woman, and among the early recipients of sex reassignment surgery. She was a successful painter under her birth name Einar Magnus Andreas Wegener. After transitioning in 1930, she changed her legal name to Lili Ilse Elvenes and stopped painting; she later adopted the surname Elbe. She died from complications following a uterus transplant. The US and UK English versions of her semi-autobiographical narrative were published posthumously in 1933 under the title Man into Woman: An Authentic Record of a Change of Sex.

A'Lelia Walker was an American businesswoman and patron of the arts. She was the only surviving child of Madam C. J. Walker, popularly credited as being the first self-made female millionaire in the United States and one of the first African American millionaires.

Ida Bell Wells-Barnett was an American investigative journalist, educator, and early leader in the civil rights movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Over the course of a lifetime dedicated to combating prejudice and violence, and the fight for African-American equality, especially that of women, Wells arguably became the most famous Black woman in America.

Peter Kürten was a German serial killer known as "The Vampire of Düsseldorf" and the "Düsseldorf Monster". He committed a series of murders and sexual assaults between February and November 1929 in the city of Düsseldorf. In the years before these assaults and murders, Kürten had amassed a lengthy criminal record for offences including arson and attempted murder. He also confessed to the 1913 murder of a nine-year-old girl in Mülheim am Rhein and the attempted murder of a 17-year-old girl in Düsseldorf.

Chandra Shekhar Azad, popularly known as by his self-taken name Azad, was an Indian revolutionary who reorganised the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) under its new name of Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA) after the death of its founder, Ram Prasad Bismil, and three other prominent party leaders, Roshan Singh, Rajendra Nath Lahiri and Ashfaqulla Khan. He often used the pseudonym "Balraj" when signing pamphlets issued as the commander in chief of the HSRA.

Knute Kenneth Rockne was a Norwegian-American football player and coach at the University of Notre Dame.

Angela Maria "Geli" Raubal was an Austrian woman who was the half-niece of Adolf Hitler. Born in Linz, Austria-Hungary, she was the second child and eldest daughter of Leo Raubal Sr. and Hitler's half-sister, Angela Raubal. Raubal lived in close contact with her uncle Adolf from 1925 until her presumed suicide in 1931.

Francis Julius Bellamy (1855–1931) was an American Christian socialist minister and author, best known for writing the original version of the US Pledge of Allegiance in 1892.

Wilson Alwyn Bentley, also known as Snowflake Bentley, was an American meteorologist and photographer, who was the first known person to take detailed photographs of snowflakes and record their features. He perfected a process of catching flakes on black velvet in such a way that their images could be captured before they either melted or sublimated.

General Sir John Monash,, was a civil engineer and an Australian military commander of the First World War. He commanded the 13th Infantry Brigade before the war and then, shortly after its outbreak, became commander of the 4th Brigade in Egypt, with whom he took part in the Gallipoli campaign. In July 1916 he took charge of the newly raised 3rd Division in northwestern France and in May 1918 became commander of the Australian Corps, at the time the largest corps on the Western Front. Monash is considered one of the best allied generals of the First World War and the most famous commander in Australian history.

Charles Joseph "Buddy" Bolden was an African American cornetist who was regarded by contemporaries as a key figure in the development of a New Orleans style of ragtime music, or "jass," which later came to be known as jazz.

Rachel Bluwstein Sela was a Hebrew-language poet who immigrated to Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire, in 1909. She is known by her first name, Rachel, or as Rachel the Poetess.

Thomas William "Tom" Roberts was an English-born Australian artist and a key member of the Heidelberg School art movement, also known as Australian impressionism.

Jack Black (1871–1932) was a hobo and professional burglar. Born in 1871 in New Westminster, British Columbia, he was raised from infancy in the U.S. state of Missouri. He wrote You Can't Win, a memoir or sketched autobiography describing his days on the road and life as an outlaw. Black's book was written as an anti-crime book urging criminals to go straight, but it is also his statement of belief in the futility of prisons and the criminal justice system, hence the title of the book. Jack Black was writing from experience, having spent thirty years as a traveling criminal and offers tales of being a cross-country stick-up man, home burglar, petty thief, and opium fiend. He gained fame through association with William S. Burroughs.

Louis Robert Wolheim was an American actor, of both stage and screen, whose rough physical appearance relegated him to roles mostly of thugs or villains in the movies, but whose talent allowed him to flourish on stage. His career was mostly contained during the silent era of the film industry, due to his untimely death at the age of 50 in 1931.

Anna Pavlovna Pavlova, born Anna Matveyevna Pavlova, was a Russian prima ballerina of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. She was a principal artist of the Imperial Russian Ballet and the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev. Pavlova is most recognized for her creation of the role of The Dying Swan and, with her own company, became the first ballerina to tour around the world, including South America, India and Australia.

Baron Kitasato Shibasaburō was a Japanese physician and bacteriologist. He is remembered as the co-discoverer of the infectious agent of bubonic plague in Hong Kong during an outbreak in 1894, almost simultaneously with Alexandre Yersin.

Shivaram Hari Rajguru was an Indian revolutionary from Maharashtra, known mainly for his involvement in the assassination of a British Raj police officer. He also fought for the independence of India and On 23 March 1931 he was hanged by the British government along with Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev Thapar.