On this day 225 years ago-YORKTOWN! (thank you France)

[underpants]

http://www.historychannel.com/today/

VICTORY AT YORKTOWN:
October 19, 1781


Hopelessly trapped at Yorktown, Virginia, British General Lord Cornwallis surrenders 8,000 British soldiers and seamen to a larger Franco-American force, effectively bringing an end to the American Revolution.

General George Washington instructed the Marquis de Lafayette, who was in Virginia with an American army of around 5,000 men, to block Cornwallis' escape from Yorktown by land. In the meantime, Washington's 2,500 troops in New York were joined by a French army of 4,000 men under the Count de Rochambeau. Washington and Rochambeau made plans to attack Cornwallis with the assistance of a large French fleet under the Count de Grasse, and on August 21 they crossed the Hudson River to march south to Yorktown. Covering 200 miles in 15 days, the allied force reached the head of Chesapeake Bay in early September.

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 bands played the song "The World Turned Upside Down."

[tocqueville]

1. you're welcome anytime

[bicentennial_baby]

2. Mille Mercis à Monsieur Lafayette!!!

:bounce:

[William769]

3. People on the right seem to gorget this little factoid.

[underpants]

4. Yes they do

the girl who cuts my hair is French and when all the anti-French hoohaa was going on all the business boys gave her a hard time about it (in a joking way of course) I let her in on this. The next time I went back for a haircut she thanked me and said that several of them had just piped down after she brought up Yorktown.