Historical timeline for August 2

At least 146 people are killed and more than 114 injured in a factory explosion in Kunshan, Jiangsu, China.

Air France Flight 358 lands at Toronto Pearson International Airport and runs off the runway, causing the plane to burst into flames, leaving 12 injuries and no fatalities.

The Gaisal train disaster claims 285 lives in Assam, India.

Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched on STS-43 to deploy the TDRS-5 satellite.

Iraqi invasion of Kuwait: Iraq invades Kuwait and temporarily establishes the Republic of Kuwait puppet state on the orders of Saddam Hussein, eventually leading to the Gulf War.

Pakistan is re-admitted to the Commonwealth of Nations after having restored 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.

Delta Air Lines Flight 191, a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, crashes at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport killing 137.

The Helsinki Metro, the first rapid transit system of Finland, is opened to the general public.

A bomb explodes at the railway station in Bologna, Italy, killing 85 people and wounding more than 200.

A flash fire kills 50 people at the Summerland amusement centre at Douglas, Isle of Man.

An earthquake hits Casiguran, Aurora, Philippines killing more than 270 people and wounding 261.

A British South American Airways Avro Lancastrian airliner crashes into a mountain during a flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Santiago, Chile. The wreckage would not be found until 1998.

World War II: The Potsdam Conference ends.

ASNOM: Birth of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, celebrated as Day of the Republic in North Macedonia.

World War II: The largest trade convoy of the world wars arrives safely in the Western Approaches.

The Holocaust: Jewish prisoners stage a revolt at Treblinka, one of the deadliest of Nazi death camps where approximately 900,000 persons were murdered in less than 18 months.

World War II: After the Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 is rammed and sunk by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri, Lt. John F. Kennedy, future U.S. president, saves all but two of his crew.

Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard write a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him to begin the Manhattan Project to develop a nuclear weapon.

The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 is passed in America, the effect of which is to render marijuana and all its by-products illegal.