Browse events, births, deaths and holidays on August 2 throughout history.
The 2014 Kunshan explosion was a dust explosion that occurred at Zhongrong Metal Production Company, an automotive parts factory located in Kunshan, Jiangsu, China, on 2 August 20…
At least 146 people were killed and more than 114 injured in a factory explosion in Kunshan, Jiangsu, China.
Air France Flight 358 was a regularly scheduled international flight from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, France, to Toronto Pearson International Airport in Ontario, Canada. …
Air France Flight 358 lands at Toronto Pearson International Airport and runs off the runway, causing the plane to…
The Gaisal train collision occurred on 2 August 1999, when two trains carrying about 2,500 people collided at the remote station of Gaisal in West Bengal, India. Owing to a signal…
The Gaisal train disaster claims 285 lives in Assam, India.
Space Shuttle Atlantis is a retired Space Shuttle orbiter vehicle which belongs to NASA, the spaceflight and space exploration agency of the United States. Atlantis was manufactur…
Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched on STS-43 to deploy the TDRS-5 satellite.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, codenamed Project 17, began on 2 August 1990 and marked the beginning of the Gulf War. After defeating the State of Kuwait on 4 August 1990, Iraq wen…
Iraqi invasion of Kuwait: Iraq invades Kuwait and temporarily establishes the Republic of Kuwait puppet state on the…
Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the secon…
Pakistan is re-admitted to the Commonwealth of Nations after having restored democracy for the first time since 1972.
The 1989 Valvettiturai massacre occurred on 2 and 3 August 1989 in the small coastal town of Valvettiturai, on the Jaffna Peninsula in Sri Lanka. Sixty-four Sri Lankan Tamil civil…
A massacre is carried out by an Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka killing 64 ethnic Tamil civilians.
Delta Air Lines Flight 191 was a regularly scheduled Delta Air Lines domestic flight from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Los Angeles, California, with an intermediate stop at Dallas…
Delta Air Lines Flight 191, a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, crashes at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport killing 137.
The Helsinki Metro is a rapid transit system serving the Helsinki capital region, Finland. It is the only metro system in Finland as well as the world's northernmost metro system.…
The Helsinki Metro, the first rapid transit system of Finland, is opened to the general public.
The Bologna massacre was a terrorist bombing of the Bologna Centrale railway station in Bologna, Italy, on the morning of 2 August 1980, which killed 85 people and wounded over 20…
A bomb explodes at the railway station in Bologna, Italy, killing 85 people and wounding more than 200.
The Summerland disaster occurred when a fire spread through the Summerland leisure centre in Douglas on the Isle of Man on the night of 2 August 1973. Fifty people were killed and…
A flash fire kills 50 people at the Summerland amusement centre at Douglas, Isle of Man.
The 1968 Casiguran earthquake occurred on 04:19:22 local time on August 2 with a moment magnitude of 7.6 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). The thrust earthquake's …
An earthquake hits Casiguran, Aurora, Philippines killing more than 270 people and wounding 261.
British South American Airways (BSAA) was a state-run airline of the United Kingdom in the mid-to-late 1940s responsible for services to the Caribbean and South America. Originall…
A British South American Airways Avro Lancastrian airliner crashes into a mountain during a flight from Buenos Aires,…
The Potsdam Conference was held at Potsdam in the Soviet occupation zone from 17 July to 2 August 1945, to allow the three leading Allies to plan the postwar peace, while avoiding…
World War II: The Potsdam Conference ends.
The Anti-fascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia was the supreme legislative and executive people's representative body of the communist Macedonian state from Au…
ASNOM: Birth of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, celebrated as Day of the Republic in North Macedonia.
Convoy HX 300 was the 300th of the numbered series of World War II HX convoys of merchant ships from Halifax to Liverpool. It started its journey on 17 July 1944 and was the large…
World War II: The largest trade convoy of the world wars arrives safely in the Western Approaches.
The Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered a…
The Holocaust: Jewish prisoners stage a revolt at Treblinka, one of the deadliest of Nazi death camps where…
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many en…
World War II: After the Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 is rammed and sunk by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri, Lt. John F.…
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum theory. His mass–…
Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard write a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him to begin the Manhattan Project to…
The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, Pub. L. 75–238, 50 Stat. 551, enacted August 2, 1937, was a United States Act that placed a tax on the sale of cannabis. It was the first national r…
The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 is passed in America, the effect of which is to render marijuana and all its by-products…