On this day in history, British forces, under the command of General Cornwallis, had been stationed in Yorktown, Virginia, for several weeks. After many grueling battles with the Americans, the British were in desperate need of reinforcements. 

The Royal Navy was on its way with everything needed to help Cornwallis continue the fight: men, supplies and weapons. He waited in anticipation. However, General George Washington and Lt. Gen. Comte de Rochambeau, the leaders of the American and French armies, saw this as an opportunity to strike. 

The British had only 9,000 men, were severely outnumbered by the combined American and French forces of about 20,000. The French Navy reached the Chesapeake Bay before the Royal Navy, blocking their entrance and preventing the supplies from reaching the British. 

The Americans and the French had finally made it to the area outside of Yorktown, they began constructing trenches facing the British lines. The American and French Soldiers worked several days to prepare their position, while the British attempted to stop them by spending their precious little ammunition on them. 

The Continental Army and the French Army were ready and prepared to begin fighting the British. This event in history was the start of what would become the climax of the Revolutionary War, and what would end with Cornwallis’s surrender to Washington.