- Aug 2 MLB conducts the first test of bright yellow baseballs during Dodgers vs Cardinals doubleheader
Baseball Record
Aug 7 2,000th Brooklyn Dodgers home run: legendary shortstop Leo Durocher homers off Reds hurler Peaches Davis in 8th inning of a 6-3 win
Leo Durocher
- Aug 7 Nazis close theologic department of Innsbruck university
- Aug 8 Great Trek Centenary Celebrations commence; the Great Trek was a migration involving Boers leaving the Cape Colony and settling in the interior of South Africa
- Aug 8 6th Venice Film Festival opens
- Aug 10 119°F (48°C), Pendleton, Oregon (state record)
- Aug 14 BBC's 1st feature film on TV (Student of Prague)
- Aug 17 1st aircraft owned by US Forest Service in service (Oakland)
- Aug 17 Henry Armstrong wins his 3rd concurrent boxing championship
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Baseball Record
Aug 20 Lou Gehrig hits record 23rd & last grand slam
Lou Gehrig
Film Premier
Aug 23 "You Can’t Take It With You" from the play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, directed by Frank Capra and starring James Stewart and Jean Arthur premieres. Best Picture (1939)
- Aug 24 England beat Australia by an innings & 579 runs at The Oval
- Aug 24 Virgil Trucks strikes out his 418th batter, highest season total in organized ball-for Andalusia in an Alabama-Florida League game
- Aug 26 British leaders & Arabians fight in Palestine
- Aug 26 Montreal Maroons dropped from NHL
- Aug 27 Two NYC subway trains collide at 116th Street killing 2 and injuring 51
- Aug 27 Yanks Monte Pearson no-hits Indians 13-0, DiMaggio hits 3 triples
- Aug 28 Mauthausen concentration camp opens in Austria
- Aug 28 Northwestern University awards honorary degree to dummy Charlie McCarthy
- Aug 28 On Connie Mack Day at Shibe Park, the A's win a doubleheader
- Aug 31 5th NFL Chicago All-Star Game: All-Stars 28, Washington 16 (74,250)