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Hey, history lovers. I'm Mike Rosenwald with Retropod, a show about the past, rediscovered.

June 6th, 1944, D-Day.

Some 156,000 soldiers, 4,000 ships, and 11,000 airplanes

invaded Nazi-controlled Western Europe in a massive and coordinated attack.

It was called Operation Overlord.

The outcome of World War II of stopping Adolf Hitler depended on it.

Its success, though bloody, defined not only the future of the free world, but also the legacy

of Dwight D. Eisenhower,

the fearsome and calculating general who would later become the 34th president of the United States.

On the day before the mission, Eisenhower gave a speech to the troops who were about to risk their lives. Soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force.

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade,

toward which we have striven these many months.

Eisenhower was the commander of the Allied forces in Western Europe,

and he'd spent months planning an invasion he thought could turn the tide of the Allied forces in Western Europe, and he'd spent months planning an invasion

he thought could turn the tide of the war and history. It was a monumental risk. The general

knew he was likely ordering many of his men to their deaths, and the success of the operation

depended on his leadership. It weighed heavily on him. He was living on a diet

of coffee and cigarettes, smoked four packs a day. His blood pressure was rising.

As June approached, Eisenhower's aides and weather forecasters told him he only had a three-day window to launch the attack. D-Day was supposed to take place on June 5th. He ultimately decided to delay it by 24 hours to June 6th.

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