Over 10,000 soldiers lost their lives while taking the beach, as the German forces were heavily fortified with mines and other obstacles (like wooden stakes, metal tripods and barbed wire) and, of course, machine gun emplacements firing down from above the beach.
Over 150,000 soldiers landed on five sectors of the 50-mile-long beach in northern France.
This signified the Allied forces making its push into France as the military began to retake Europe from the forces of Nazi Germany.
Today is the 79th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy by the Allied forces during World War II, part of Operation Overlord (specifically, the invasion itself was called Operation Neptune), but more commonly referred to as 'D-Day' (D-Day, along with H-Hour, was a preexisting military term used to denote the day and hour of a planned attack, but obviously, with Operation Neptune being such a historic attack, this specific D-Day has gained secondary meaning).
