7:30 a.m.: British attack on the Somme: 200,000 men rush against the German lines; at 7:32 a.m., thousands of German Maxim machine guns open fire: within minutes, 70,000 men will be killed, including 20,000 dead. From the book “To the Last Man”: “…the rat-rat-rat of the Maxim gun – a machine-made funeral knell…”
