This day in history

On this day in 1781, British General Charles Cornwallis formally surrenders 8,000 British soldiers and seamen to a French and American force at Yorktown, Virginia, bringing the American Revolution to a close..

On October 19, General Cornwallis surrendered 7,087 officers and men, 900 seamen, 144 cannons, 15 galleys, a frigate and 30 transport ships. Pleading illness, he did not attend the surrender ceremony, but his second-in-command, General Charles O'Hara, carried Cornwallis' sword to the American and French commanders. As the British and Hessian troops marched out to surrender, the British band played the song "The World Turned Upside Down."

Although the war persisted on the high seas and in other theaters, the Patriot victory at Yorktown effectively ended fighting in the American colonies. Peace negotiations began in 1782, and on September 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed, formally recognizing the United States as a free and independent nation (sic) after eight years of war.

((Note to History.com: the British did NOT recognize the United States simply as one independent nation; the Treaty of Paris specifically recognizes the independence of each of the now-sovereign 13 former colonies. This is not merely a quibble, for it was those 13 sovereign States that would later create the Union... not the other way around...))