Video: 'The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century - Slaughter' (June 7, 1917, at 47:00)

(Thursday, June 7, 1917, 3:10 a.m. CEST; on the Western Front during World War I) —
The Battle of Messines opened today as the British Second Army, under the command of General Sir Herbert Plumer, detonated 19 ammonal mines under the German lines near the village of Messines in West Flanders, Belgium, killing 10,000 in the deadliest deliberate non-nuclear man-made explosion in history.