50 facts and figures about D

Walter Rosenblum/U.S. Army Signal Corps/Galerie Bilderwelt // Getty Images

50 facts and figures about D-Day

Five years into World War II, the Allies were squeezing the Nazis from two sides. In Western Europe, Allied forces had managed to slow Adolf Hitler's ruthless expansion across the continent. Meanwhile, to the East, the Russians had successfully locked German forces into a brutal war of attrition. Nazi Germany, however, was still firmly secure in its continental fortress. And scores of occupied nations suffered as a result.

Then came D-Day.

On June 6, 1944, Allied planes, ships, vehicles, supplies, and men from the United Kingdom, United States, France, and Canada stormed the coast of occupied France's Normandy region in numbers so staggering they're difficult to comprehend. The l