For a work visa, yes, you need a degree. It needs to be in a field that we have a shortage of. Engineering and the hard sciences.
For an immigrant visa, no, you can be uneducated, illiterate, and unemployable. Unfortunately.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.