On what date did the Siege of Yorktown end in 1781?

The Siege of Yorktown ended on October 19, 1781, when the British army surrendered to the Franco-American forces.

The siege began on September 28 after George Washington's Continental Army joined French forces commanded by the Comte de Rochambeau near Yorktown, Virginia. French naval forces under the Comte de Grasse blocked the Chesapeake Bay, preventing British Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis from receiving effective reinforcement or escaping by sea.

Cornwallis requested surrender terms on October 17, and negotiations followed at the Moore House. He did not attend the final ceremony, citing illness; Brigadier General Charles O'Hara represented the British army, and Major General Benjamin Lincoln accepted the formal sword of surrender on Washington's behalf.

Yorktown was the final major land engagement of the American Revolutionary War. Fighting continued elsewhere, especially at sea, and the Treaty of Paris did not formally end the war until September 3, 1783. Yorktown nevertheless made American independence a practical political reality.