Northern Ireland has arguably seen more 'D' Days than a Second World War matinee.
It is impossible to predict whether post-November 26 the Good Friday Agreement will make another escape to victory, or be forced to face an anti-agreement firing squad.
And while there are predictions that this could be one of the closest elections in the history of the state, it should be remembered that previous campaigns have already thrown up high drama.
The single biggest electoral change for unionism in the last 30 years came in 1974 when unionists opposed to the Sunningdale agreement won 11 of the 12 Westminster seats, effectively sinking Brian Faulkner's power-sharing executive at Stormont.
For republicans it was Bobby Sands's 1981 by-election victory over Ulster Unionist candidate Harry West in Fermanagh/South Tyrone which marked the start of Sinn Féin's entry into politics.
Bobby Sands's success convinced the Sinn Féin leadership that an electoral base existed, eventually propelling republicans into mainstream politics.
Less than two years later Gerry Adams was elected MP for West Belfast with 16,379 votes.
While his victory was seen as the first political breakthrough for Sinn Féin, it was partly achieved by the fact the SDLP's Joe Hendron and former party leader Gerry Fitt had split moderate nationalism, each receiving 10,000 votes.
The next major electoral shift came in November 1985 when Northern Ireland's 15 unionist MPs resigned their seats in protest at the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement.
While the subsequent January 1986 by-elections were billed as a referendum on the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the only real surprise was the fact that SDLP's Seamus Mallon unseated sitting MP Jim Nicholson in Newry and Armagh.
Ironically it was in these by-elections that a Mr Wesley Robert Williamson found a peculiar place in Northern Ireland's electoral history, by adopting the name of the Republic's then foreign minister Peter Barry and fighting on the slogan 'For the Anglo-Irish Agreement.'
Despite not campaigning at all, Mr Williamson saved his deposit in three of the four seats where he stood.
It is understood that Mr Williamson's decision to 'fight' the by-elections had more to do with the necessity of having an opposing candidate to stand against the unionist candidates, than any genuine support for the Anglo-Irish Agreement.
One of the most unexpected election results came in April 1992 when the SDLP's Joe Hendron defeated Gerry Adams in west Belfast by 589 votes, believed largely to have been as a result of tactical voting by the unionist minority in the constituency.
By 1997, with the ceasefires and the peace process predicted to be on the verge of delivering a new political settlement, nationalists had secured five Westminster MPs in the shape of John Hume, Gerry Adams, Seamus Mallon, Eddie McGrady and Martin McGuinness. But arguably it has been the wide variety of marginal election victories through history which have created the most interest.
The smallest victory is believed have come in north Tyrone in 1907 when Liberal candidate Redmond Barry beat unionist Drew Henry by just seven votes.
In 1951 Irish Labour candidate Jack Beattie won a west Belfast by-election when he defeated unionist Thomas Teevan by just 25 votes. But it was the battle for Fermanagh/South Tyrone again in 2001 which saw the closest election victory in recent years when Sinn Féin's Michelle Gildernew defeated Ulster Unionist James Cooper by just 53 votes.
The narrow victory was challenged by the UUP in the courts, alleging that a number of votes had been cast after the 10pm deadline, but the bid to overturn the result failed and Ms Gildernew became Sinn Féin's fourth MP at Westminster.
It is widely predicted that the results of November 26 poll could mark a fundamental turning point in the fortunes of the Good Friday Agreement.
Number-crunchers from the political parties will attempt to navigate a successful route through the often complex PR voting system. But as history has shown, the margin between winning and losing, can be a handful of votes.
