August 7: Battle of Guadalcanal begins - The U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps begin the first American offensive of the war with an amphibious landing on the island of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.

August 8: Walt Disney's animated film Bambi premieres in the United Kingdom.

August 9: Indian leader, Mohandas Gandhi is arrested in Bombay by British forces. - Start, led by the goalkeeper Nikolai Trusevich, play football against the German Luftwaffe team Flakelf in Nazi-occupied Kiev. Against all odds, they win 5-3. Eight of them are later arrested and tortured, and at least four are killed.

August 13: In Washington, D.C., six German would-be saboteurs are executed. (Two others are cooperative and receive sentences of life imprisonment instead; one is spared because of his relatively young age. Those imprisoned are freed a few years after the end of the war.) - Quit India resolution is passed by the Bombay session of the All India Congress Committee (AICC), which led to the start of a historical civil disobedience movement across India. - Walt Disney's fifth animated film, Bambi, is released in the United States.

August 14: In London, instruments detect a massive burst of cosmic rays.

August 15: The American tanker SS Ohio reaches Malta as part of the convoy of Operation Pedestal.

August 16: Polish-Jewish teacher Janusz Korczak follows a group of Jewish children into the Treblinka death camp. - The U.S. Navy blimp L-8 (Flight 101) comes ashore near San Francisco, eventually coming down in Daly City (the crew is missing).

August 17: First raid by heavy bombers of U.S. Eighth Air Force against occupied France.

August 19: Dieppe Raid: Allied forces raid Dieppe, France.

August 22: Brazil declares war on Germany and Italy.

August 23: Battle of Stalingrad begins: German troops reach the suburbs of Stalingrad.

August 25: Japanese marines land at Milne Bay. - Prince George, Duke of Kent, brother to King George VI and King Edward VIII, dies in a flying accident over Morven in Scotland at the age of 39.

August 30: Luxembourg is formally annexed to the German Reich.

August 31: A general strike is launched in Luxembourg to protest against forced conscription.

August 31-September 5: Battle of Alam Halfa. (source: Wikipedia)