It has almost been 70 years since Allied troops crossed the English Channel and invaded the French coast at Normandy, spelling the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany.<br/> <br />World leaders are preparing to mark the occasion with a lunch on June 6th.<br/> <br />Attendees of the D-Day anniversary will include U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.<br/> <br />Ukraine's president-elect Petro Poroshenko and Russia's Putin will also be there.<br/> <br />Should the two men come face-to-face it would be the first time Russia's president meets a pro-Western Ukrainian politician since Moscow's annexation of Crimea in March.<br/> <br />The D-Day landings on June 6, 1944, resulted in approximately 6,000 American casualties, as well as 4,300 British and Canadian deaths.<br/> <br />German casualties are unknown but are estimated to be somewhere between 4,000 and 9,000.<br/> <br />The Allied onslaught would bring Adolf Hitler's German empire to its knees less than twelve months later.
