This date in history: Yorktown siege begins
On this date in 1781, the Continental Army under the commands of American Gen. George Washington and French commander, Comte de Rochambeau, began its siege of Yorktown, Virginia, a key colonial port and peninsular settlement where the Marquess Charles Cornwallis, a British Earl and lieutenant general of His Majesty's royal army in the South, had positioned his forces on orders from British General-in-Chief Henry Clinton.
A French naval blockade prevented any escape by sea, while the Continental Army surrounded the British by land. With their outer defenses breached from a successful Continental Army assault on Oct. 14, the British literally had their backs up against a wall. American and French artillery could now reach headquarters, so Cornwallis decided to negotiate terms of surrender on Oct. 17.
Two days later, Cornwallis relinquished his sword to Gen. Washington at a surrender ceremony in which he was notably absent. He sent a subordinate to surrender his sword, a sign of armistice, in his place.
Upon learning of the capture of Cornwallis and his army of more than 7,000 troops, the British government began negotiations with the United States of America, culminating in the Treaty of Paris signed almost two years later on Sept. 3, 1783.
The Yorktown siege proved to be the last battle of the American War for Independence, paving the way toward an official end to the Revolutionary War and peace with the world's foremost super-power.
That peace lasted less than 30 years, though, before war was again declared between Great Britain and the United States. Following the War of 1812, in which America prevailed to keep its sovereignty, peace between the two nations remained fragilely intact as time healed the wounds.
By the twentieth century, and most notably World War I, Great Britain would become one of the USA's most staunch allies, which it remains to this day. Once bitter enemies had become close friends over time.