On This Day - What happened 31 August

Richard remained in sole command of the Crusader force after the departure of Philip II on 31 July 1191.

On August 30, General William Alexander held off the British and gave cover while the army crossed the East River under darkness to Manhattan Island without loss of life or materiel, although Alexander was captured.

At the end of August, Garibaldi was at Cosenza, and, on 5 September, at Eboli, near Salerno. Meanwhile, Naples had declared a state of siege, and on 6 September the king gathered the 4,000 troops still faithful to him and retreated over the Volturno river.

White mob dragged Lucius McCarty's body behind a car killing him before burning his corpse in a bonfire.

The Knoxville riot in Tennessee broke out after the arrest of a black suspect on suspicion of murdering a white woman. Searching for the prisoner, a lynch mob stormed the county jail, where they liberated 16 white prisoners, including suspected murderers. The mob attacked the African-American business district, where they fought against the district's black business owners, leaving at least 7 dead and wounding more than 20 people.

The United States, concerned with events in Europe and Asia, passed the Neutrality Act at August 1935. The 1935 act, signed on August 31, 1935, imposed a general embargo on trading in arms and war materials with all parties in a war. It also declared that American citizens traveling on warring ships traveled at their own risk.

The Poles refused to comply with the German demands, and on the night of 30–31 August in a stormy meeting with the British ambassador Neville Henderson, Ribbentrop declared that Germany considered its claims rejected.

The Battle of the Punchbowl, was one of the last battles of the movement phase of the Korean War. Following the breakdown of armistice negotiations in August 1951, the United Nations Command (UN) decided to launch a limited offensive in the late summer/early autumn to shorten and straighten sections of their lines, acquire better defensive terrain, and deny the enemy key vantage points from which they could observe and target UN positions. The Battle of Bloody Ridge took place west of the Punchbowl from August–September 1951 and this was followed by the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge northwest of the Punchbowl from September–October 1951. At the end of the UN offensive in October 1951, UN forces controlled the line of hills north of the Punchbowl.

Webb was born in Corona, California. His father was a Marine sergeant, and the family moved frequently, as his career took him to new assignments.

On August 31, Senator Kenneth Keating (R-New York) warned on the Senate floor that the Soviet Union was "in all probability" constructing a missile base in Cuba. He charged the Kennedy administration with covering up a major threat to the US, thereby starting the crisis.

Charles was born on August 3, 1963, in Nigeria. Born in the Nigerian ethnic group Yoruba, he spent most of his early years in Nigeria and later migrated to Greece.

López was released from an Ecuadorian prison on 31 August 1994, then rearrested as an illegal immigrant and handed over to Colombian authorities, who charged him with a 20-year-old murder. He was declared insane and held in the psychiatric wing of a Bogotá hospital.

During eight hours of subsequent talks, Lebed and Maskhadov drafted and signed the Khasav-Yurt Accord on 31 August 1996.

On 31 August 1997, Diana died in a car crash in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris while the driver was fleeing the paparazzi.

Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris on 31 August of the following year; Charles flew to Paris with Diana's sisters to accompany her body back to Britain.

His mother died in a car crash in Paris in 1997. Harry and William were staying with their father at Balmoral at the time, and the Prince of Wales told his sons about their mother's death.

William's mother wanted him and his younger brother Harry to have wider experiences than are usual for royal children. She took them to Walt Disney World and McDonald's, as well as AIDS clinics and shelters for the homeless, and bought them items typically owned by teenagers, such as video games Diana, who was by then divorced from Charles, died in a car accident in the early hours of 31 August 1997. William, then aged 15, together with his 12-year-old brother and their father, were staying at Balmoral Castle at the time. The Prince of Wales waited until his sons awoke the following morning to tell them about their mother's death. William accompanied his father, brother, paternal grandfather Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and his maternal uncle Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer, at his mother's funeral; they walked behind the funeral cortège from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey.

A year after the divorce, Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997. At the time, the Duke was on holiday at Balmoral with the extended royal family. In their grief, Diana's two sons, Princes William and Harry, wanted to attend church and so their grandparents took them that morning.

On 18 August 2004, during an international match against the Netherlands, Ibrahimović injured Ajax teammate Rafael van der Vaart, who later accused Ibrahimović of hurting him intentionally. This led to Ibrahimović's sudden sale to Juventus on 31 August.

Katrina maintained strength well into Mississippi, finally losing hurricane strength more than 150 miles (240 km) inland near Meridian, Mississippi. It was downgraded to a tropical depression near Clarksville, Tennessee, but its remnants were last distinguishable in the eastern Great Lakes region on August 31, when it was absorbed by a frontal boundary.

Milan began its 2007–08 season by winning the UEFA Super Cup on 31 August, defeating Sevilla 3–1, with Kaká scoring the third goal.

In the 21st century, historical plaques were installed on buildings in Cork and Waterford, Ireland, and London to celebrate Douglass's visit: the first is on the Imperial Hotel in Cork and was unveiled on August 31, 2012; the second is on the facade of Waterford City Hall and was unveiled on October 7, 2013. It commemorates his speech there on October 9, 1845. The third plaque adorns Nell Gwynn House, South Kensington in London, where Douglass stayed with the British abolitionist George Thompson. A plaque on Gilmore Place in Edinburgh marks his stay there in 1846.

On 31 August 2014, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPCSC) set restriction on the electoral method of the Chief Executive, in which any candidate should be screened through by a Beijing-controlled nominating committee before standing in the election. The 2014 NPCSC decision triggered a historic 79-day protest which was dubbed as the "Umbrella Revolution".

In June 2015 the network announced that "IKEA Family" would cease to operate from 31 August 2015.

August 31, 2018, Ford announced that the Focus Active will not go on sale in North America because of the tariffs that would be placed on vehicles built overseas.

On August 31, 2018, Eminem released his previously unannounced tenth studio album Kamikaze, making it his second full-length studio album in 8 months.

On 7 August 2018, Goulding and her boyfriend, Caspar Jopling, announced their engagement. The couple were married at York Minster on 31 August 2019.

Henry V, King of England and France, died at 36 after being weakened by dysentery and heatstroke.

Husein Gradaevi was born in Gradaac, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The composer, Johann Paul Aegidius Martini, was born in Germany in the year 1741.