On the afternoon of Saturday 7 September 1940, people living in London and the suburbs were basking in an Indian summer with temperatures in the 90s when 350 enemy aircraft filled the skies and began dropping bombs on the London docks which erupted into flames. The raids of that day marked the beginning of a sustained bombing campaign on London that was to last for 76 consecutive nights with the exception of 2 November 1940 when it was too cloudy. Blitz, the German word for 'lightning', was applied by the British press to describe the bombing raids carried out over Britain in 1940 and 1941.