Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/August 31
August 31: Independence Day for Malaysia (1957), Trinidad and Tobago (1962), Kyrgyzstan (1991)
- 1876 - Abdul Hamid II (pictured) became Sultan of the Ottoman Empire when his brother Murad V was deposed.
- 1888 - In Victorian London, Jack the Ripper claimed his first victim.
- 1920 - Polish forces, led by their cavalry, defeated the Bolshevik Red Army in the Battle of Komarów.
- 1986 - After a collision with a freighter, Soviet ocean liner Admiral Nakhimov sank in the Black Sea within 7 minutes, killing 398 on board.
- 1992 - Pascal Lissouba was inaugurated as the President of the Republic of the Congo after a multi-party presidential election, ending a long history of one-party Marxist rule.