d dayToday marks the 68th anniversary of D-Day -- the day 29,000 American soldiers lost their lives as they stormed the beaches in Normandy, France. The essence of the Allied invasion was captured in Speilberg's film Saving Private Ryan, but despite that detailed re-creation, it's hard to really imagine what was going through the heads of the young men who were ordered to embark on what soon became one of the most important invasions in world history, one Obama said would "define the 20th century, on both sides of the Atlantic."

Browse these D-Day photos to get a glimpse of the anticipation, the battle, and the chaos of that fateful June 6 in 1944. A picture is, after all, worth more than 1,000 words.