Photo of the Day

Depositors stand outside the American Union Bank in New York. They were unable to withdraw their savings before the bank collapsed, June 30, 1931.

The unemployment rate stands at 15 percent and banks have begun to fail.

The public is beginning to hoard cash at home rather than deposit it in banks.

Those banks which have survived the panicked withdrawals are beginning to accumulate large cash reserves instead of lending depositor money out.

So, there is a marked decrease in the supply of money available to businesses to fund their ongoing operations.

Unemployed dock workers, New York City.

Consumer consumption is decreasing, bankruptcies and unemployment are rising, and deflation is taking hold.

And the first US budget deficit in a decade occurs.

To fix it, President Hoover pushes tax increases through to raise revenue, but this pulls more money out of the domestic economy.

He’s made matters worse.

Left: FDR and Chief at Hyde Park, 1930. Right: FDR with Al Smith at the Empire State Building ribbon-cutting, May 1931.

Meanwhile, Governor Franklin Roosevelt of New York is responding to the economy’s tailspin with relief programs for strapped New Yorkers.

And in May, he attends the opening of the brand-new Empire State Building.

Winston Churchill, a Conservative Member of Parliament, embarks on a paid lecture tour of North America to recoup money he lost in the 1929 stock market crash.

While in New York, he is struck by a car while crossing 5th Avenue, suffering a head wound which leaves lingering nerve damage.

Ukrainian peasants in search of food during the Holodomor.

Joseph Stalin, in his seventh years as the leader of the Soviet Union, has called for the rapid industrialization of the country.

He has also implemented the forced collectivization of agriculture, which will cause declines in farm production which will starve millions.

Left: The Abraham Lincoln Brigade, whose members came from the US. Right: Hemingway in Spain.

The king of Spain is deposed and a republic is declared, setting the stage for the Spanish Civil War.

Thousands of Americans will travel to Spain to fight on the side of the Republicans.

They will include Ernest Hemingway, whose experiences there will form the basis of his book “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”

Albert Einstein begins research work at Cal Tech, alongside astronomer Edwin Hubble.

Hubble takes Einstein to the Mount Wilson Observatory in the San Gabriel Mountains to look through the lens of the 100-inch telescope through which Hubble discovered the expansion of the universe in 1929.

Einstein becomes convinced that Hubble is correct, and he drops his theory of a constant universe.

Salvador Dali creates the surrealist painting “The Persistence of Memory (Melting Clocks).”

Left: Capone is convicted, 1931. Right: Capone’s cell at Alcatraz, one of three federal penitentiaries where he served time.

Al Capone, age 32, is given an eleven year prison sentence for tax evasion.

He will be released in 1939 due to declining health brought on by advanced syphilis.

Dracula, Dick Tracy, and Frankenstein’s monster.

The film Dracula is released, starring Bela Lugosi.

Frankenstein is also released, with Boris Karloff playing Frankenstein’s monster.

And Dick Tracy, the comic strip detective character created by Chester Gould, makes his first appearance in the Detroit Mirror newspaper.

And finally…

Among those born in 1931 are some of America’s favorite character actors: Robert Duvall; Leonard Nimoy; Barbara Eden; and Larry Hagman.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

— Brenda