The July 20th Plot to Assassinate Hitler
On this day in 1944 German army officer Claus, Count Schenk von Stauffenber left a bomb in a briefcase in a conference room where Adolf Hitler was meeting in an effort to assassinate him. Although Hitler was in the room at the time of the explosion and four others in the room died, Hitler himself escaped with only minor injury.
The attempt was part of a larger consipiracy known as the July plot.
Stauffenberg and three others were caught and executed later that day in Berlin. A fifth conspirator (Ludwig Beck) committed suicide, and hundreds were eventually executed in connection with the plot. Hilter himself survied a little under a year longer, dying April 30, 1945.
[Via Britannica’s Guide to Normandy 1944]
(Also see Britannica’s This Day in History for more.)