What events mark the beginning and end of world war II?

Question

What events mark the beginning and end of world war II?

Answer 1

n**i invasion of Poland marks the beginning and the USA nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki mark the end.

Answer 2

begining is hitler invades poland, pisses of western world they go to war, end is japanese surrender

Answer 3

The end is easiest to answer:  V-J day.  The victory over Japan.

For a long time, the beginning was pegged as September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland.  Nowadays, however, many historians point to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 as the true beginning.  Since a "World War" is defined as a conflict with many nations involved in theatres all over most of the continents, this new definition encompasses most of the conflicts fought in the 1930's:

The SPanish Civil War

Italy's invasion of Ethiopia

Germany's annexation of Czechloslovakia (though that wasn't much of a conflict)

Russia's invasion of Finland (1940).

Those are all linked by facism, or at least the struggle against facism.