2
August
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August 2 in History
2005
Air France Flight 358, landed at Toronto Pearson International Airport, and ran off the runway causing the plane to burst into flames. There were 12 serious injuries and no fatalities.
1990
Iraq invades Kuwait, eventually leading to the Gulf War.
1989
Pakistan is re-admitted to the Commonwealth of Nations after having restoring democracy for the first time since 1972.
A massacre is carried out by an Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka killing 64 ethnic Tamil civilians.
1985
Delta Air Lines Flight 191, a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar crashes at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport killing 137.
1980
A bomb explodes at the railway station in Bologna, Italy, killing 85 people and wounding more than 200.
1973
A flash fire kills 51 at the Summerland amusement centre at Douglas, Isle of Man.
1968
An earthquake hits Casiguran, Aurora, Philippines killing more than 270 people and wounding 261.
1964
Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident
1945
World War II: the Potsdam Conference, at which the Allied Powers discuss the future of defeated Germany, is concluded.
1944
ASNOM: birth of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, celebrated as Day of the Republic in the Republic of Macedonia.
1943
Rebellion in the Nazi death camp of Treblinka.
World War II: the Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 is rammed by the Japanese destroyer ''Amagiri'' and sinks. Lt. John F. Kennedy, future U.S. President, saves all but two of his crew.
1939
Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd write a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him to begin the Manhattan project to develop a nuclear weapon.
1937
The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 is passed in America, the effect of which is to render marijuana and all its by-products illegal.
1934
Gleichschaltung: Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany.
1932
The positron (antiparticle of the electron) is discovered by Carl D. Anderson.
1922
A typhoon hits Shantou, Republic of China killing more than 50,000 people.
1918
Japan announces that it is deploying troops to Siberia in the aftermath of World War I.
1916
World War I: Austrian sabotage causes the sinking of the Italian battleship ''Leonardo da Vinci'' in Taranto.
1903
Fall of the Ottoman Empire: an unsuccessful uprising led by the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization against Ottoman Turkey, also known as the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising, takes place.
1870
Tower Subway, the world's first underground tube railway, opens in London.
1869
Japan's samurai, farmer, artisan, merchant class system (Shinōkōshō) is abolished as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms. (Traditional Japanese date: June 25, 1869).
1798
French Revolutionary Wars: the Battle of the Nile concludes in a British victory.
1790
The first US Census is conducted.
1610
Henry Hudson sails into what it is now known as Hudson Bay thinking he had made it through the Northwest Passage and reached the Pacific Ocean.
1377
Russian troops are defeated in the Battle on Pyana River because of drunkenness.