The Most Important Day in History? D-Day: June 6, 1944 – clip

Robert Watson / Lynn University

The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of German-occupied France (and later western Europe) and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front. D-Day would mark the beginning of the end for the Nazi regime and result in the liberation of Europe. But it almost didn’t happen and a few unlikely events ended up shaping the invasion in intriguing ways. This lecture examines the enormity of the planning and the operation, the Nazi defenses and costly mistakes, the phases of the operation and strategies on both sides, and the extraordinary actions of the Allied soldiers.