WHAT ALL HAPPENED JULY TO AUGUST 1940
Find out what all happened July to August 1940

World War II: Army order 112 forms the Intelligence Corps of the British Army. (19. July 1940)

Doodlebug Disaster: A doodlebug train in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio collides with a multi-car freight train heading in the opposite direction, killing 43 people. (31. July 1940)

The United States' Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles issues a declaration on the U.S. non-recognition policy of the Soviet annexation and incorporation of three Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. (23. July 1940)

Estonia was illegally annexed by the Soviet Union. (6. August 1940)

World War II: Italian forces begin the invasion of British Somaliland. (3. August 1940)

The Second Vienna Award re-assigns the territory of Northern Transylvania from Romania to Hungary. (30. August 1940)

Denmark leaves the League of Nations. (20. July 1940)

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill makes the fourth of his famous wartime speeches, containing the line "Never was so much owed by so many to so few". (20. August 1940)

World War II: Vichy France regime is formally established. Philippe Pétain becomes Prime Minister of France. (11. July 1940)

In Mexico City, Mexico exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded with an ice axe by Ramón Mercader. He dies the next day. (20. August 1940)

World War II: Battle of Britain – The German Luftwaffe begins attacking British convoys in the English Channel thus starting the battle (this start date is contested, though). (10. July 1940)

An Italian submarine torpedoes and sinks the Greek cruiser Elli at Tinos harbor during peacetime, marking the most serious Italian provocation prior to the outbreak of the Greco-Italian War in October. (15. August 1940)

Indian independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose is arrested and detained in Calcutta. (2. July 1940)

First flight of the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber. (19. August 1940)

World War II: Alsace-Lorraine is annexed by the Third Reich. (7. August 1940)

World War II: the United Kingdom and the Vichy France government break off diplomatic relations. (5. July 1940)

World War II: Battle of Cape Spada – The Royal Navy and the Regia Marina clash; the Italian light cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni sinks, with 121 casualties. (19. July 1940)

Chad becomes the first French colony to join the Allies under the administration of Félix Éboué, France's first black colonial governor. (26. August 1940)

World War II: the Vichy government is established in France. (10. July 1940)