I have been assigned a paper for my U.S. history class in which I must choose the year that I think was the most important and influential year of WWII. I already have a few ideas, but I don't really know much about the war and any guidance or suggestions would be helpful. Here are the years I am considering:

1939: The year Britain and France declared war on Germany when Hitler invaded Poland

1941: The year Germany went to war with the USSR

1944: The year that the Allies really took to the offensive and pushed Germany back. D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge took place during this year.

1945: The year the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the year that Germany and Japan surrendered.

I am willing to discuss this topic to the extent of my knowledge and any suggestions would be appreciated greatly. I would also be thankful to anyone who pointed me toward a good source. I will end up choosing the year after reading feedback here and deciding for myself which year was the most influential. I will consider every year in the war. I am not asking you all to do my homework for me. I simply need to be guided in the right direction. Keep in mind that I am a highschool freshman, so the reasons should be kept fairly simple. Thanks in advance.

In the opinion of the Chinese, WWII began in 1932, as that was when Japan invaded China.
You could always choose 1919: as WWII was produced, according to many people, by the Versailles Treaty, or 1914, as the Versailles Treaty ended WWI which began in 1914, or 1871, as the settlement imposed of France in that year by Prussia....

Jan 22, 1941 - Tobruk in North Africa falls to the British and Australians.
Feb 12, 1941 - German General Erwin Rommel arrives in Tripoli, North Africa.
March 11, 1941 - President Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act.
April 17, 1941 - Yugoslavia surrenders to the Nazis.
April 27, 1941 - Greece surrenders to the Nazis.
May 10, 1941 - Deputy Führer Rudolph Hess flies to Scotland.
May 10/11 - Heavy German bombing of London; British bomb Hamburg.
May 24, 1941 - Sinking of the British ship Hood by the Bismarck.
May 27, 1941 - Sinking of the Bismarck by the British Navy.
June 14, 1941 - United States freezes German and Italian assets in America.
June 22, 1941 - Germany attacks Soviet Union as Operation Barbarossa begins.
July 10, 1941 - Germans cross the River Dnieper in the Ukraine.
July 12, 1941 - Mutual Assistance agreement between British and Soviets.
July 26, 1941 - Roosevelt freezes Japanese assets in United States and suspends relations.
Aug 14, 1941 - Roosevelt and Churchill announce the Atlantic Charter.
Oct 2, 1941 - Operation Typhoon begins (German advance on Moscow).
Oct 16, 1941 - Germans take Odessa.
Oct 24, 1941 - Germans take Kharkov.
Oct 30, 1941 - Germans reach Sevastopol.
Nov 20, 1941 - Germans take Rostov.
Nov 27, 1941 - Soviet troops retake Rostov.
Dec 5, 1941 - German attack on Moscow is abandoned.
Dec 6, 1941 - Soviet Army launches a major counter-offensive around Moscow.
Dec 7, 1941 - Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor.
Dec 8, 1941 - United States and Britain declare war on Japan.
Dec 11, 1941 - Germany declares war on the United States.
Dec 16, 1941 - Rommel begins a retreat to El Agheila in North Africa
Dec 19, 1941 - Hitler takes complete command of the German Army.

The answer has to be 1941. Remember that neither WWI or WWII were necessarily fated from the onset to become WORLD wars. 1941 was the year in which WWII became a world war. German peace overtures to Britain were rejected. The Soviet Union was invaded, and by degrees the US gradually abandoned its neutrality and aligned itself with Britain - eventually provoking attack by the Japanese. In the closing months of the year, the Wehrmacht was shown NOT to be the invincible force that Hitler imagined. The tide turned against Germany.

The rest of the war was just about how the superior forces of the Allies achieved their inevitable victory.

The most important day was when Harry Dexter White (a soviet Spy working for FDR) leaked the Morgenthau-Plan for postwar Germany to the Nazis. FDR got the plan in Sept of 1944 but there is no doubt Morgantheu and White had, on Stalin orders, make it clear to Germans before that their country would be turned into a pasture the Red Army could roll right across with no resistence.

Had Weiss and Morgantheu not done what they did, they war would have been over in Europe at least a year earlier. Eastern Europe would not have been turned into a communist concentration camp for 50 years..and on and on...

There is no contest right here. The most important year in WWII is 1945. Not because it ended but because of how it ended. The detonation of the atomic bomb is the most significant thing that has happened in the half century. Because of that we had the Cuban Missle Crisis, the cold war, nuclear power plants, and lately the entire war in Iraq (looking for WMD).

Again, there is no contest. 1945 marked a turning point in human history.

Later
T

Another contender: July 24, 1941

The day FDR declared an oil embargo on Japan. From that day, anyone could calculate when the Imperial Navy would need to act to seize oil or dock the ships. The only force which could react if Japan took the Indonesian oil fields was the U.S. Navy. So it, if the US did not resume oil shipments, the US Navy needed to be taken out.

Japan was not threatening the USA. It was fighting in China. Since 1939, FDR stayed out of the war because of public sentiment. So what caused him to act on that day?

Germany had invaded the Soviet Union on June 22th and by the end of July it appeared might taken out the USSR by winter.

Many of FDR's advisors--Hiss, White, Currie and others--were, as we discovered when the Army broke the Soviet code,
working for Stalin.

December 7, 1941. If U.S had entered the war, things would be a whole lot different today.

easy question. germany invading russia in 1941.

Actually in my opinion 1943 was the make or break year for the German military machine . 1943 was the year of Kursk which crippled the offensive capability of the German war machine . 1943 was also the start of the USAF/RAF mass strategic bombing of German cities disabling industrial activity .

Most important year of WWII? According to whom? If you meant according to USA then you got plenty of dates. If it is from the standpoint of USSR then you would probably get different dates. If you meant overall for the history then you will get absolutely different answers. So first clarify for yourself. As for me 1943, namely Stalingrad battle was crusial year and event in the whole world war.

BATTLE OF STALINGRAD ENDS:
February 2, 1943

On this day, the last German troops in the Soviet city of Stalingrad surrender
to the Red Army, ending one of the pivotal battles of World War II.On June 22, 1941, despite the terms of the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939, Nazi Germany launched a massive invasion against the USSR. Aided by its greatly superior air force, the German army raced across the Russian plains, inflicting terrible casualties on the Red Army and the Soviet population. With the assistance of troops from their Axis allies, the Germans conquered vast territory, and by mid-October the great Russian cities of Leningrad and Moscow were under siege. However, the Soviets held on, and the coming of winter forced a pause to the German offensive.For the 1942 summer offensive, Adolf Hitler ordered the Sixth Army, under General Friedrich von Paulus, to take Stalingrad in the south, an industrial center and obstacle to Nazi control of the precious Caucasian oil wells. In August, the German Sixth Army made advances across the Volga River while the German Fourth Air Fleet reduced Stalingrad to a burning rubble, killing over 40,000 civilians. In early September, General Paulus ordered the first offensives into Stalingrad,
estimating that it would take his army about 10 days to capture the city. Thus began one of the most horrific battles of World War II and arguably the most important because it was the turning point in the war between Germany and the USSR.In their attempt to take Stalingrad, the German Sixth Army faced a bitter Red Army under General Vasily Zhukov employing the ruined city to their advantage, transforming destroyed buildings and rubble into natural defensive fortifications. In a method of fighting the Germans began to call the Rattenkrieg, or "Rat's War," the opposing forces broke into squads eight or 10 strong and fought each other for every house and yard of territory. The battle saw rapid advances in street-fighting technology, such as a German machine gun that shot around corners and a light Russian plane that glided silently over German positions at night, dropping lethal bombs without warning. However, both sides lacked necessary food, water, or medical supplies, and tens of thousands perished every week.Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was determined to liberate the city named after him, and in November he ordered massive reinforcements to the area. On November 19, General Zhukov launched a great Soviet counteroffensive out of the rubble of Stalingrad. German command underestimated the scale of the counterattack, and the Sixth Army was quickly overwhelmed by the offensive, which involved 500,000 Soviet troops, 900 tanks, and 1,400 aircraft. Within
three days, the entire German force of more than 200,000 men was
encircled.Italian and Romanian troops at Stalingrad surrendered, but the Germans hung on, receiving limited supplies by air and waiting for reinforcements. Hitler ordered Von Paulus to remain in place and promoted him to field marshal, as no Nazi field marshal had ever surrendered. Starvation and the bitter Russian winter took as many lives as the merciless Soviet troops, and on January 21, 1943, the last of the airports held by the Germans fell to the Soviets, completely cutting the Germans off from supplies. On January 31, Von Paulus surrendered German forces in the southern sector, and on February 2 the remaining German troops surrendered. Only 90,000 German soldiers were still alive, and of these only 5,000 troops would survive the Soviet prisoner-of-war camps and make it back to Germany.The Battle of Stalingrad turned the tide in the war between Germany and the Soviet Union. General Zhukov, who had played such an important role in the victory, later led the Soviet drive on Berlin. On May 1, 1945, he personally accepted the German surrender of Berlin. Von Paulus, meanwhile, agitated against Adolf Hitler among the German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union and in 1946 provided testimony at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. After his release by the Soviets in 1953, he settled in East Germany.

.....
NEWS FROM RUSSIA

Liberation Of Europe Began With Battle Of Kursk

Vladimir Putin called the Battle of Kursk an event of international significance, which marked a turning-point in World War II.
"The Battle of Kursk anniversary is an event of national and international significance", the head of state said at an official meeting in Kursk today, gathered on the 60th anniversary of the Soviet victory in the battle.
"The Battle of Kursk highlighted the final and irreversible turning-point in the world war. Events of this kind are the landmarks in our great history. They are the sources of people's pride and Russian patriotism", the President said.
According to him, on the Kursk salient the Soviet army not only won in the greatest of battles but also prevented the enemy from taking its revenge for the crushing defeats it had suffered near Moscow and Stalingrad.
"The enemy began to back down to its den. Almost two years of a hard war were ahead, but now our army was only going forward to Berlin. It was liberating cities and villages, opening the gates of concentration camps, bringing with it life, freedom and hope", Vladimir Putin emphasized.
"The liberation of Europe began with the Kursk turning-point", the Russian President said.

http://www.india.mid.ru/nfr2003/nf2208.html

1941: The year Germany went to war with the USSR

Dec 7, 1941 - Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor.
Dec 8, 1941 - United States and Britain declare war on Japan.
Dec 11, 1941 - Germany declares war on the United States.

1941 has my vote, Ape boy was spot on by saying thats when it became a real world war. Most immportant yeaR for us Americans anyhow. before then, war hadnt touch US soil in that century.

+ youve got the Blitz, which Brits remembr most.

BATTLE OF STALINGRAD ENDS:


Actually it was before that.
the day the Illuminati lost the BATTLE OF STALINGRAD.
http://www.goldismoney.info/forums/t113771-world-war-ii-ultimate-secret-beyond-hitler-pearl-harbor-auschwitz-and-hiroshima.html

Actually it was before that.
the day the Illuminati lost the BATTLE OF STALINGRAD.
http://www.goldismoney.info/forums/t113771-world-war-ii-ultimate-secret-beyond-hitler-pearl-harbor-auschwitz-and-hiroshima.html

Or won it of course, depending which version of Illuminati you were cheering for at the time.

Yes 41' absolutely. The turn around year.

1930 when the Poles broke the German diplomatic cypher.

I really hope the OP's finished his essay by now.

I doubt he had 2 years to complete it! :D