June 6 will mark the 78thanniversary of the Battle of Normandy—the day in 1944 when allied forces from 13 countries stormed five beaches in Normandy, France, marking the beginning of the end of World War II. Planned under the codename Operation Overlord, the attack by sea and air included almost 156,000 allied troops from the United States, Canada, England, and several other countries and is considered the largest military invasion ever assembled.
The term “D-Day” actually refers to the specific day any military operation is set to launch, but the nickname has colloquially become synonymous with the Normandy landings, which were commanded by General Dwight Eisenhower of the United States Army. The Battle of Normandy began that day on June 6 and lasted until August 1944, when the city of Paris and all of northern France was liberated from the control of Nazi Germany.
By May 1945, World War II in Europe came to an end when Germany’s Third Reich surrendered days after Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s suicide; the war officially ended that August when Japan surrendered to the Western Allies.
