Video: 'World War II - Blitzkrieg to the Bomb Documentary' (Aug. 24, 1940, at 20:41)

(Saturday, August 24, 1940, around 11:00 p.m. BST; during the Battle of Britain, part of the Western Front of World War II) — The Luftwaffe dropped bombs on the financial heart of London and Oxford Street in the West End tonight, probably unintentionally as the German bomber pilots had likely made a navigational error and did not know they were over the city, starting a war of attrition that would last five years.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was outraged at what he perceived to be a deliberate attack and ordered the RAF to bomb Berlin in retaliation, which it did the following day.

Damage was slight and nobody was killed, but it came as a loss of face for Hermann Göring, who had boasted that Berlin would never be bombed.

German Chancellor Adolf Hitler authorized the bombing of London in retaliation.