1831 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar).

Events

• February-March - Revolts in Modena, Parma and the Papal States are put down by Austrian troops
• February 20 - Battle of Grochow. Polish rebel forces divide a Russian army.
• March 1 - Democrat Samuel Smith becomes President Pro Tempore of the United States Senate until December 4
• March 9 – French Foreign Legion founded
• March 19 - City Bank of New York is the site of the first bank robbery in United States history ($245,000 taken).
• April 7 - Pedro I of Brazil abdicates as emperor of Brazil in favor of his son Pedro II of Brazil.
• May 26 - Battle of Ostrolenka . The Poles fight another indecisive battle.
• June 1 - James Clark Ross discovers the position of the North Magnetic Pole on the Boothia Peninsula.
• July 21 - Inauguration of Leopold I of Belgium, first king of the Belgians
• August 2 - Dutch invasion of Belgium. It is repelled by a French army
• August 21 - Outbreak of Nat Turner's slave rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia. Approximately 55 whites stabbed, shot and clubbed to death.
• September 6-8 - Battle of Warsaw - The Russians take the Polish capital and crush resistance.
• September 22 - UK House of Commons passes the Reform Bill - it is later defeated in the House of Lords
• October 26 – Cholera epidemic begins in Sunderland, England
• October 30 - In Southampton County, Virginia, escaped slave Nat Turner is captured and arrested for leading the bloodiest slave revolt in United States history.
• October 31 - Rioters burn down 100 houses in Bristol, UK - intervention by 14th Dragoons leads to death of hundreds
• November 11 - In Jerusalem, Virginia, Nat Turner is hanged after inciting a violent slave uprising.
• December 27 - Charles Darwin embarks on his historic journey aboard the HMS Beagle.

• The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper is first published.
• Cholera in Hamburg

Births

• January 7 - Heinrich von Stephan, organizer of the German postal union and founder of the Universal postal union (d. 1897)
• January 26 - Mary Mapes Dodged , writer (d. 1907)
• March 3 - George Pullman, inventor, industrialist
• March 6 - Friedrich von Bodelschwingh , theologian (d. 1910)
• March 12 - Clement Studebaker, automobile pioneer
• March 20 - Solomon L. Spink, U.S. Congressman from Illinois (d. 1881)
• June 1 - John Bell Hood, Confederate general (d. 1879)
• June 28 - Joseph Joachim, Austrian violinist (d. 1907)
• July 22 - Emperor Komei of Japan
• 12 August - Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, author and theosophist
• September 18 - Siegfried Marcus, German-Austrian automobile pioneer (d.1898)
• October 6 - Richard Dedekind, German mathematician.
• October 18 - Frederick III, German Emperor
• October 31 - Romualdo Pacheco, 12th Governor of California

Deaths

• January 21 - Achim von Arnim, German poet (b. 1781)
• February 14 - Vincente Guerrero, Mexican revolutionary hero
• February 17 - Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, founder of the Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg.
• April 27 - Charles Felix of Savoy, King of Sardinia
• June 27 - Sophie Germain, mathematician.
• July 4 - James Monroe, 5th President of the United States
• November 11 - Nat Turner, leader of slave revolt.
• November 14 - Georg Hegel, German philosopher.
• November 16 - Carl von Clausewitz, German strategist.