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An entire British army under John Burgoyne surrendered in upstate New York, convincing France to join the war on the American side.
Where this fits on the timeline. Fifteen months after the Declaration of Independence, the Revolution was in trouble. Washington had lost Philadelphia, and a British army was marching down from Canada to cut New England off from the other colonies. Instead, that army surrendered in the woods near Saratoga, New York, in October 1777. The victory brought France into the war and is the turning point of the American Revolution.
Split the colonies along the Hudson. General John Burgoyne led about 8,000 British, German, Loyalist, and Native troops south from Canada in June 1777, expecting to meet another British force coming north from New York City. That force never came: General William Howe took his army to Philadelphia instead. Burgoyne captured Fort Ticonderoga easily, then bogged down in the wilderness, where Americans felled trees across every road. A raid for supplies at Bennington, Vermont, cost him nearly a thousand men. By September he was short of food, far from help, and facing a growing American army under Horatio Gates.
Freeman's Farm and Bemis Heights. On September 19 Burgoyne attacked the American lines and won the ground at Freeman's Farm, but lost about 600 men he could not replace, many of them to Daniel Morgan's riflemen. On October 7 he tried again at Bemis Heights. Benedict Arnold, who had quarreled with Gates and been relieved of command, rode into the fight anyway, led the charge that broke the British line, and was badly wounded in the leg. Burgoyne retreated to Saratoga, was surrounded, and on October 17, 1777 surrendered his whole army of nearly 6,000 men. The Americans let them stack their arms and march away with the honors of war.
Benjamin Franklin had been waiting for exactly this. France had been secretly shipping muskets and gunpowder to the Americans since 1776, but King Louis XVI would not risk open war until the rebels proved they could win. News of Saratoga reached Paris in December. On February 6, 1778, Benjamin Franklin signed treaties of alliance and commerce with France. French loans, French regiments, and above all the French navy followed; Spain joined the war in 1779 and the Netherlands in 1780. Britain was now fighting a world war, and it could no longer concentrate on the colonies.
From rebellion to war between nations. Before Saratoga, most of Europe expected Britain to win. Afterward, Britain offered the colonies everything short of independence, and Congress refused. The Continental Army spent the following winter at Valley Forge being drilled into a professional force, and the French alliance made possible the final trap at Yorktown four years later. Arnold, the hero of Bemis Heights, felt cheated of credit and turned traitor in 1780, which is why Americans remember his name the way they do.
Walk the ground. The Saratoga National Historical Park preserves the battlefield, and the American Battlefield Trust has maps and a short overview. Richard Ketchum's Saratoga: Turning Point of America's Revolutionary War is the standard narrative.
Recommended, age-appropriate books to explore this further. Links open a library catalog search.
Saratoga: Turning Point of America's Revolutionary War
by Richard M. Ketchum
The standard narrative of the campaign, from Ticonderoga to the surrender; for grades 9 to 12.
George vs. George: The American Revolution as Seen from Both Sides
by Rosalyn Schanzer
Shows the war from the king's side and Washington's side in pictures; ideal for grades 6 to 8.
Burgoyne's plan to split the colonies along the Hudson failed when Howe went to Philadelphia instead of meeting him
Two battles, Freeman's Farm and Bemis Heights, wore the British down; Benedict Arnold led the decisive charge
Burgoyne surrendered nearly 6,000 men on October 17, 1777
France signed an open alliance in February 1778, followed by Spain and the Netherlands, turning the rebellion into a world war