Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Normandy landings took place on the 6th of June 1944. The operation, codenamed Operation Neptune, began shortly after midnight with airborne assaults, followed by amphibious landings on the coast of France at approximately 06:30.
Nearly 160,000 troops crossed the English Channel on D-Day itself, with 875,000 men disembarked by the end of June 1944. The initial assault included 24,000 airborne troops dropped overnight before the beach landings began.
The five sectors were Utah and Omaha, assigned to US forces; Gold and Sword, assigned to British forces; and Juno, assigned to Canadian forces. The 50-mile stretch of Normandy coast was divided to allow simultaneous landings across a broad front.
The Pas-de-Calais was the closest point in continental Europe to Britain and therefore the most heavily fortified, and it offered little room for expansion due to surrounding rivers and canals. Normandy allowed simultaneous threats against the port of Cherbourg, coastal ports in Brittany, and an overland push toward Paris.
Allied casualties on D-Day were at least 10,000, with 4,414 confirmed dead. German casualties have been estimated at 4,000 to 9,000 men. Civilian casualties on D-Day and the following day are estimated at 3,000.
Operation Bodyguard was the Allied deception campaign designed to mislead Germany about the date and location of the invasion. It included Fortitude South, which created a fictitious US Army Group under Lieutenant General George S. Patton to suggest the main attack would target Calais, keeping German forces guarding a vast stretch of coastline rather than concentrating at Normandy.