For the past week, sites in the United Kingdom and France have been hosting a number of events leading up to today, the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings of June 6, 1944. Veterans, families, dignitaries, and visitors have gathered at former battlefields and cemeteries to commemorate the Allied landings on the beaches of Normandy, which turned the tide in World War II and led to the liberation of occupied France and the defeat of Nazi Germany. Gathered here are images of some of these events, and of some of the few remaining veterans who took part in that costly invasion eight decades ago.
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