British forces surrendered at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, a decisive Revolutionary War event remembered by America250.
The surrender followed a siege in Virginia led by American and French forces under George Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau. Their army trapped Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis’s British troops on the York River peninsula while a French fleet blocked British naval relief.
American and French troops captured key redoubts during the night of October 14–15, tightening the encirclement. Cornwallis opened surrender negotiations on October 17, and the formal ceremony occurred two days later. Cornwallis did not attend the ceremony, citing illness; Brigadier General Charles O’Hara represented him.
Yorktown did not end every military operation immediately, but it destroyed Britain’s best chance of continuing a major campaign in the American South. Peace negotiations followed, leading to the Treaty of Paris in 1783. The event is often called the last major battle of the American Revolutionary War.