quote:
Battle of Britain: Defeated the German Luftwaffe in WW2. Prevented German forces from ever mounting an invasion of Great Britain and allowed the British to fight Hitler from beginning to end. (yeah I know WW2 again)

This is important in that it showed the world that Hitler could be stopped. But to be honest, the Germans were really never going to invade the British home islands anyway.

quote:
Defeat of the Spanish Armada: Massive Spanish fleet that sought to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I and rid England of the Protestant movement. If Spain had succeeded there is no telling how different the world would be today. If I'm not mistaken England was only an average power and certainly not the dominate sea power that it would become which make the victory that much more impressive.

This one could rank at the top in that without this victory, England would have never gown into the British Empire. Instead the Spanish would be the big global empire of the Colonization age.

quote:
Battle of Waterloo: I know this is an obvious one. It finally finished off Napoleon. However it wasn't just Britain fighting in the battle and their allied forces did outnumber Napoleon's. Plus Napoleon had already been defeated, captured, and imprisoned. This battle occurred after he escaped and was more like a 'final stand' for Napoleon rather than a battle that crushed Napoleon at his height.

This was the final hurrah of the Little Corporal. But really, there was no chance of him surviving. At that point all of Europe was arrayed against him. A major victory to be sure, but not the most important. I'd say from a standpoint of importance, the most significant victory over Napoleon was The Battle of Leipzig where there were no British troops present.

quote:
Battle of the Nile: I don't know the specifics about this battle except that the British navy crushed Napoleon's navy in Egypt, trapping Napoleon in his forces. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but didn't this really establish Britain's naval superiority over France and really made it impossible for Napoleon to invade Britain? However Napoleon would escape and continue his military campaigns throughout Europe.

The Battle of Trafalgar is what dashed any hopes France had of posing a realistic threat to the British from a naval standpoint.

This post was edited on 8/20/14 at 2:47 pm