The decisive battle of the American Revolution trapped a British army under Cornwallis between an American army on land and a French fleet at sea. He surrendered approximately 7,000 troops on 19 October 1781. Where?
Yorktown ended the Revolutionary War militarily; the British government collapsed within months and the peace treaty was signed in Paris in 1783. Saratoga (1777) was earlier and equally important — it persuaded France to formally enter the war on the American side, which was the strategic difference. Bunker Hill (1775) was a tactical British victory at the start of the war. Trenton (Christmas 1776) was Washington's surprise raid across the Delaware. The French fleet at Yorktown was under the Comte de Grasse; the American-French land army was under Washington and Rochambeau.
Read the full facts →The American Revolution was the political-military conflict between the thirteen British North American colonies and the British Crown between 1765 and 1783, producing the independence of the United States of America and the most consequential single political event of the late 18th century outside the French Revolution.
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