Yorktown ended with the British surrender that effectively ended the American Revolutionary War.
The Siege of Yorktown took place in Virginia from September 28 to October 19, 1781. American forces commanded by George Washington joined French troops led by the Comte de Rochambeau, while French naval power helped prevent British relief by sea. The allied army surrounded General Charles Cornwallis’s position at Yorktown.
Cornwallis surrendered his army on October 19. Fighting continued in some areas afterward, so Yorktown was not a formal instant end to every military operation. However, the defeat was so significant that the British government lost political support for continuing the war.
Peace negotiations produced the Treaty of Paris, signed in 1783. That treaty recognized the independence of the United States. Yorktown is therefore remembered as the decisive military conclusion of the Revolution, while 1776 marks the declaration of the political cause America250 commemorates.