The Largest Amphibious Invasion in History: The Allies Land in Normandy June 1944

79 years ago next month, June 6th, 1944, D-Day, saw around 150,000 Allied troops land in Normandy supported by many thousands of aircraft and ships. D-Day was in fact the largest amphibious invasion in history, and in his talk, our guest speaker, Dr. Robert Smith of the University of Alberta History Department will examine why D-Day was such a crucial event in the overall context of the Second World War. 

Dr. Smith was awarded his PhD in the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge in 1979. He joined the Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta in 1998. Before that, he was Chair of the Space History Department of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. He has been the Lindberg Chair of Aerospace History at the Smithsonian Institution and a Fellow of the National Humanities Centre, as well as a McCalla Professor and Killam Annual Professor at the University of Alberta. In 2016, he won the Faculty of Arts Award for Full Professors for Excellence in Research.