The death sentence, for treason, of German-born American Max Stephan was commuted by U.S. President Roosevelt to life imprisonment, seven hours before Stephan was to be hanged. Stephan had been convicted of harbouring a German prisoner of war who had escaped from a POW camp in Ontario.

Romanian Foreign Minister Mihai Antonescu met with the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in Rome and pleaded with him to lead a bid by the countries aligned with Germany to leave the Axis. Mussolini refused to commit to the plan.

The Pacific Campaign: American forces defeated the Japanese in the Battle of Viru Harbor on the island of New Georgia.

Adolf Eichmann was granted full authority by Martin Bormann to use the Gestapo in the enforcement of "the permanent elimination of Jews from the territories of Greater Germany".

The Pacific Campaign: New Georgia, the largest of the Solomon Islands controlled by Japan, was invaded by the U.S. 37th and 43rd Infantry divisions, striking from Rendova Island. After fierce resistance from the Japanese occupiers for more than a month, the New Georgia airfield at Munda would be captured on August 5, and the entire island would be secured by August 25.

The Pacific Campaign: The Battle of Wickham Anchorage ended in an American victory.

Allied Bomber Offensive: Heavy night-time British air raid, 650+ aircraft attack on Cologne, Germany. Pathfinder aircraft fitted with Oboe radar tracking. Heavy damage to the target

The new town of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, constructed for workers on the secret atomic bomb project, had its first residents arrive, as a family moved into a trailer on the 92 square mile area. Within two years, it would have 75,000 people, but its existence would be kept hidden until after World War II.

The Eastern Front: The Battle of Kursk (Operation Citadel), the largest tank battle in history begins when Germany launched an attack on the Soviet city of Kursk with 20 infantry divisions and 3,000 tanks. Two days later, the Soviet Union launched a counteroffensive against the Germans. By the time the battle ended on August 5, the Germans had lost 70,000 men and 2,900 of the 3,000 tank

The Pacific Campaign: American and Japanese troops fought the Battle of Kula Gulf off Kolombangara in the Solomon Islands.

The Pacific Campaign: The Battle of Kula Gulf was fought between U.S. and Japanese warships off the island of Kolombangara with an inconclusive result.

Yeshwantrao Holkar II, the 33-year-old Maharaja of Indore, described as "one of the wealthiest men in the world", was granted a divorce from his American wife, Maharanee Margaret Lawlor, in proceedings in Reno, Nevada.

The town of Boise City, Oklahoma was mistakenly bombed by a U.S. Army Air Forces plane that had taken off from the nearby Dalhart Army Air Base in Texas. The pilot, sent on a training mission to drop explosives on a practice range near Conlen, Texas, got off course, mistook Boise City for the range, and dropped five bombs on the town. Although there was slight damage to buildings, nobody was injured, and the air raid was stopped after the town was blacked out by an alert power plant worker.

Allied Bomber Offensive: Heavy night-time British air raid, 280+ aircraft attack on Cologne, Germany. Pathfinder aircraft fitted with Oboe radar tracking. Heavy damage to the target

Allied Bomber Offensive: Heavy night-time British air raid, 410+ aircraft attack on Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Pathfinder aircraft fitted with Oboe radar tracking. Light damage on the target

A German air raid killed 108 people, many of them children, in a movie theatre, in the British town of East Grinstead. Schoolchildren were inside the Whitehall Cinema, watching a Hopalong Cassidy film, when air raid sirens sounded. At 5:17 pm, a wave of German bombers struck the town, levelling the theatre with one bomb, followed by a second. Another 235 people were seriously injured.

The Italian Campaign: The Allied invasion of Sicily began as U.S., British and Canadian forces landed on the large Italian island at 0245 GMT (4:45 am local time), with the U.S. Third Infantry Division, codenamed the "Dime Force", coming ashore at the beaches of the port city of Licata. The Seventh United States Army and the British Eighth Army arrived with 180,000 men on 2,590 ships in "the largest sea-borne assault" of World War II. Defending Sicily were 230,000 Italian and 40,000 German troops. Earlier, the Allies released 147 military gliders from towing aircraft, to glide in silently. Of those, 69 were released too early and landed in the ocean, drowning 252 men. Only 12 of the 147 gliders landed in the target area.

The Pacific Campaign: The Battle of Enogai began between American and Japanese forces in New Georgia.

Football International: Paraguay 2-5 Argentina Estadio Defensores del Chaco, Asuncion

The Italian Campaign: British forces capture the ancient port of Syracuse (Siracusa) in the invasion of Sicily, while nine other major ports (Licata, Gela, Pachino, Avola, Noto, Pozzallo, Scoglitti, Ispica and Rosolini) were captured by the Allies on the second day of the invasion.

The Pacific Campaign: The Battle of Enogai on New Georgia ended in an American victory.

Football International: Paraguay 2-1 Argentina Estadio Defensores del Chaco, Asuncion

The Pacific Campaign: The Battle of Kolombangara was fought off the island of Kolombangara over the night of July 12–13, resulting in a Japanese tactical victory.

The Eastern Front: The main engagement of the greater Battle of Kurse, the Battle of Prokhorovka starts. German SS Panzer and the Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army fight a prolonged tank battle that saw the loss of hundreds of tanks in a single day. As many as 429 German and 616 Soviet tanks battled over the next four days, one of the largest tank battles in military history.

Allied Bomber Offensive: Heavy night-time British air raid, 290+ aircraft attack on Turin, Italy. Good results hitting the target on a clear night

Allied Bomber Offensive: Heavy night-time British air raid, 370+ aircraft attack on Aachen, Germany. Good results hitting the target on a clear night. Extensive damage to city centre including cathedral & town hall.

University of Munich student Alexander Schmorell, 25, and university Professor Karl Huber, 49, were both executed by guillotine at Munich's Stadelheim Prison after being convicted of distributing anti-Nazi literature for the secret organization White Rose. On the same day, the trial was held for four other students who were White Rose defendants— Wilhelm Geyer, Manfred Eickemeyer, Josef Soehngen and Harald Dohrn. People's Court chief judge Roland Freisler was absent, and the case was tried before the more lenient Judge Schwingenschlögl. All four were acquitted of the most serious charges and convicted of the less serious crime of failing to report treason. Soehngen received a six-month sentence, with credit for time served, while the other three were ordered to pay court costs.

The Eastern Front: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin orders General Panteleimon Ponomarenko, the leader of the Belarusian resistance movement, under Order Number 42 to direct the 123 partisan units to begin the destruction of the railway lines behind Axis forces in the Soviet Union

The Pacific Campaign: The Battle of Mubo in New Guinea ends with Australian forces' victory over Japanese forces

The Italian Campaign: American forces carry out the Biscari massacre, killing 73 unarmed German and Italian prisoners of war.

Allied Bomber Offensive: Heavy night-time British air raid, 160+ aircraft attack on Montbeliard, France. Difficult & small target area in a built-up area. Disappointing results

Renzo Chierici, the Chief of Police for the Italian-occupied area of France, agreed to a demand by the German authorities to turn over all German Jews who had fled across the border.

The Tule Lake Segregation Center in California was created by order of the U.S. Department of War, renamed from the Tule Lake Relocation Center, one of ten internment camps for U.S. citizens with Japanese ancestry. The "Segregation Center" was selected to house those Japanese-Americans "who by their acts have indicated that their loyalties lie with Japan during the present hostilities". The internees who were classified as disloyal would be transferred to Tule Lake from the other nine camps. Included were any who had formally asked for repatriation to Japan and had not retracted their applications before July 1, 1943; persons who had failed to answer or declined to agree to serve in the U.S. armed forces if called; and any other persons who were, in the opinion of a camp director, not loyal to the United States.

The Italian Campaign: Allied aircraft dropped pamphlets over the Italian mainland with the message, "Die for Mussolini and Hitler, or live for Italy and for civilization", a message reinforced by Allied radio broadcasts. On the same day, Benito Mussolini, under pressure from other members of the Fascist Party to respond to the invasion of Italy, convened the Fascist Grand Council for the first time since 1939.

Allied Bomber Offensive: The Air Ministry of the United Kingdom approved the use of the aluminium strips referred to as "Window", as a countermeasure against German radar.

The Pacific Campaign: The Battle of Mount Tambu, New Guinea launched by Australian & American forces against occupying Japanese

North African Campaign: The Norwegian freighter D/S Bjørkhaug, which was hauling 1,800 German mines that had been collected by minesweepers, exploded in the harbour at Algiers, killing hundreds of people who were working on the docks.

Nazi officials in German-occupied France ordered a roundup of the 13,000 Jews living in Paris, including 4,000 children, to be arrested and deported to the detention centre at Drancy, from which they were transported to the Auschwitz extermination camp.

Lithuanian Jewish resistance leader Yitzhak Wittenberg voluntarily surrendered himself to the Gestapo in Vilnius in return for an agreement that the Jewish ghetto there would not be liquidated. Wittenberg died soon afterwards, either being murdered or killing himself.

French Roman Catholic priest Father Marie-Benoit meets with Pope Pius XII in hopes of getting Vatican support for the transfer of 30,000 French Jews, from the Italian occupation zone at Nice to Italy, before the area was turned over to German administration. Benoit was unsuccessful in persuading the Pope to act.

The Eastern Front: During the Battle of Kursk, German panzer commanders were ordered by Adolf Hitler to withdraw from the battlefield and bring Operation Citadel to an end, despite protests by Erich von Manstein and other German generals that the Soviet forces could be defeated. At the time that the operation ceased, Germany had lost 252 tanks, compared to more than 2,000 lost by the Soviet Union. The battle had 64,000 German casualties and 320,000 Soviet troops.

In the only battle during World War II between an airship and a submarine, the U.S. Army blimp K-74 dropped depth charges on the German U-boat U-134, which fired its 20 mm cannons at the blimp. The K-74 was downed and its crew of ten were rescued unharmed the next day, and nobody was hurt on the U-134

The Italian Campaign: British General Harold Alexander becomes the first Allied Military Governor of Sicily, as the conquest of the Italian island was nearly completed. His first act was to proclaim the dissolution of all Fascist organizations.

The Pacific Campaign: The New Georgia counterattack launched by Japanese forces fails.

The Italian Campaign: Italian dictator Benito Mussolini met with Germany's Adolf Hitler at the northern Italian town of Feltre to discuss Italy's withdrawal from further fighting, but Mussolini reportedly failed to bring the subject up. The two leaders agreed to mount a fighting withdrawal in Italy while the Gustav Line was formed across the 72 miles from the mouth of the Garigliano to the River Sangro south of Ortona.

The United States Department of War issued an order requiring that the most troublesome German prisoners of war — "Nazi leaders, Gestapo agents, and extremists" — were to be interned at the Camp Alva PW camp at Alva, Oklahoma.

At 11:13 in the morning, Allied aeroplanes dropped bombs on the ancient city of Rome, three days after the ultimatum had been made to Italy. Italian state radio reported that 166 people were killed and 1,659 injured. The attack, and the prospect of the conquest and destruction of Italy, would hasten the fall of Premier Mussolini.

The Warsaw concentration camp, referred to as KL (Konzentrationslager) Warschau was opened with barbed wire surrounding the ruins of the former Warsaw Ghetto, with a few hundred Polish prisoners and foreign Jews being put to work in destroying the remaining buildings, salvaging valuable property that may have been left in the ruins, and attempting to persuade Warsaw's remaining Jews to come out of hiding.

The Pacific Campaign: The American Joint Chiefs of Staff voted to fight Japan by invading the Gilbert Islands and Nauru first, followed by a battle for the Marshall Islands.

The Pacific Campaign: The Battle of Bairoko was fought between American and Japanese forces in New Georgia. The day-long American assault on Japanese defensive positions was unsuccessful.

The Pacific Campaign: The Battle of Roosevelt Ridge began between American and Japanese forces in the Salamaua region of the Territory of New Guinea.

German occupation authorities in Yugoslavia announced a bounty of 100,000 Reichsmarks for the capture of Josip Broz Tito, and the same amount for Tito's fellow resistance leader, Draža Mihailović.

The Italian Campaign: American forces enter Palermo.

The Pacific Campaign: The Battle of Munda Point began in New Georgia.

The Italian Campaign: The Fascist Grand Council began its first meeting in 1939. In a ten-hour session that lasted into the next morning, the Council criticized Prime Minister Mussolini for his failure to prevent Italy from being invaded. At the end of the meeting, on a motion by Dino Grandi, the Council voted 19 to 7 to remove Mussolini from further leadership.

Allied Bomber Offensive: Operation Gomorrah, the destruction of the German port of Hamburg begins. Heavy night-time British air raid, 790+ aircraft attack on Hamburg Germany. British and Canadian aircraft bombed the city by night, and American aircraft followed during the day. By the end of the operation in November, 9,000 tons of explosives would kill more than 30,000 people and destroy 280,000 buildings. For the first time, the British forces used "Window", aluminium strips dropped to distort radar images, against the German anti-aircraft defence.

The Italian Campaign: Prime Minister of Italy Benito Mussolini along with the other Fascist Party members of his cabinet, brought an end to a dictatorship of more than 17 years. After leaving the meeting of the Fascist Grand Council earlier that day, Mussolini reportedly left to award prizes at a farmer's festival to conduct business as usual. Count Grandi then reported the Fascist Council decision to King Victor Emmanuel III, who ordered Mussolini to report personally, and then asked the longtime Premier to resign. When Mussolini asked for more time and left the palace, he was arrested, and then driven away to face imprisonment. Marshal Pietro Badoglio was appointed by King Victor Emmanuel III as the new Italian premier.

Allied Bomber Offensive: Heavy night-time British air raid, 700+ aircraft attack on Essen Hamburg Germany. Window anti-radar was used for this attack. The successful raid caused extensive damage to the industrial areas of the city, including the Krupps works. The following morning Dockor Gustav Krupp suffered a stroke from which he never recovered.

The Italian Campaign: Prince Aimone, Duke of Aosta, a member of the royal family of Italy who had been named by Benito Mussolini as King Tomislav II of the "Independent State of Croatia", renounced his rights to the throne without ever having set foot in his kingdom. When he was the Duke of Spoleto, Aimone was selected as the figurehead monarch of the puppet state, which had been set up in Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. Ante Pavelić, who ruled Croatia as its Prime Minister, accepted the King's abdication and then turned the state into a republic.

The Italian Campaign: Government broadcasts from Rome announced that Marshal Badoglio and his new cabinet had ordered the dissolution of the Fascist Council and that the Fascist Party would be abolished.

Allied Bomber Offensive: Operation Gomorrah. Heavy night-time British air raid, 790+ aircraft attack on Hamburg Germany. City bombed with the use of Pathfinders & HsS guidance. The attack caused a huge firestorm over the target. The firestorm raged for 3 hours & only subsided when all the burnable materials were consumed. American commander, Brigadier-General Anderson flew in a Lancaster to observe the raid.

The Italian Campaign: American General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces, made a radio broadcast to Italy, urging the Italian people to follow up the overthrow of Mussolini by withdrawing from the Axis powers. "You can have peace immediately, and peace under the honourable conditions which our governments have already offered you," said Eisenhower. "We are coming to you as liberators ... As you have already seen in Sicily, our occupation will be mild and beneficial... The ancient liberties and traditions of your country will be restored."

American President Roosevelt gave a fireside chat on the fall of Mussolini. Roosevelt vowed that the fallen dictator "and his Fascist gang will be brought to book, and punished for their crimes against humanity. No criminal will be allowed to escape by the expedient of 'resignation.' So our terms to Italy are still the same as our terms to Germany and Japan --'unconditional surrender.'"

At the Old Bailey in London, Communist Party member Douglas Springhall was sentenced to seven years in prison for obtaining information about munitions "calculated to be useful to the enemy." Justice Oliver told Springhall, "I do not think, on your record, it is likely that your purpose was to communicate these things to Germany, but to communicate them to someone I have no doubt whatever."

IKEA, now the world's largest retailer of furniture, was founded in Sweden by a 17-year-old carpenter, Ingvar Kamprad, with the concept of selling items at a lower price, for the purchaser to assemble. Kamprad coined the name from his initials and his address of the Eimtaryd farm near the village of Älmtaryd.

The Pacific Campaign: The Alaskan island of Kiska was evacuated by the remaining 5,183 Japanese officers, enlisted men and civilians who had occupied the American territory. U.S. ships had been diverted away from the island between July 23rd and 26th when American radar detected what appeared to be a convoy of seven reinforcement ships. With the U.S. warships away from Kiska, the Japanese escaped to their rescue ships within 55 minutes. When Allied troops arrived on August 15, they were surprised to find that the island was deserted.

Allied Bomber Offensive: Operation Gomorrah. Heavy night-time British air raid, 770+ aircraft attack on Hamburg Germany. In the greatest single-day loss of life in wartime, up to then, more than 30,000 residents of the German port city of Hamburg were killed when British bombers carried out Operation Gomorrha during the night of July 27 and 28th. Because of unusually dry conditions, the high combustibility of buildings in the working class neighbourhoods of Billwärder-Ausschlag, Borgfelde and Hamm, and the use of more than 1,000 tons of incendiary bombs, a firestorm was created, bringing powerful winds to spread the destruction. Most of the victims

The British government announced that women under the age of 50 must register for war work.

Allied Bomber Offensive: Heavy night-time British air raid, 370+ aircraft attack on Remscheid, Germany. Pathfinder aircraft fitted with Oboe radar tracking. Heavy damage to the target

The Soviet physicist Igor Kurchatov was assigned to develop the first nuclear bomb for the Soviet Union, reporting to Deputy Premier Vyacheslav Molotov that the program had advanced significantly from secrets gathered in espionage against the United States.

The Italian Campaign: The Battle of Troina began on the island of Sicily.