War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its

size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Thank you. host, James Early. Hello and welcome to key films of the European Theater of World War II.

This is your host, James Early, as always.

And as always, I'm joined by my buddy, Sean McIver.

In our last battle episode, we talked

about the invasion of France and the fall of France. And part of that was the story of Dunkirk,

how several hundred thousand British and other Allied troops were trapped and how they were

many of them, most of them were rescued by a combination of British naval vessels

as well as small boats, everything from tugboats to yachts to trawlers to, you name it, all kinds of

small craft. So the movie Dunkirk, which came out in 2017, tells that story in a very dramatic

fashion. And so that's what we will be discussing today. Let's talk about

the basics of the movie, as we always do. And then Sean's going to tell us a little bit about

the history, the making of the movie, and give some other interesting fun facts and production

notes. So the movie is one hour and 47 minutes. It's well rated on Rotten Tomatoes. The critics

gave it an average of 92% positive,

and the fans gave it 81%. And I have a theory on why the fans are so much lower, and I'll save

that for a little bit later. The average on IMDB is 7.8, which is very good. Anytime you get

...