June 22, 1941. This day is forever marked in Russian calendars with black mourning color. This is one of the most terrible dates in our history. This is the day of the greatest military disaster. How could this happen? Why did the enemy manage to take the USSR by surprise? Why were German aviation allowed to shoot down hundreds of our planes at airfields with impunity on the very first day of the war, and why were numerous divisions of the Red Army crushed and defeated in a matter of weeks? How did it happen that the colossal military machine of the Soviet state failed at the most crucial moment? A detailed, hour-by-minute chronicle of the tragic events of June 22, 1941 and an analysis of the causes of the defeat, memories of veterans and eyewitness accounts of the tragedy - in the first joint project of the most popular Russian historians Artem Drabkin and Alexey Isaev.