Surrender of Lord Cornwallis
On this day in 1781, Britain’s Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, handing a huge victory to American General George Washington and effectively ending the American Revolution and assuring America’s independence. 1781.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted nearly 23 percent, the largest one-day percentage drop in the stock market’s history. 1987.
During World War I, the First Battle of Ypres began in western Flanders; the Allies and Germans settled into the trench warfare that would characterize the remainder of the war on the Western Front. 1914.
American industrialist George M. Pullman, inventor of the Pullman sleeping car used on railroads, died. 1897.
Napoleon began his disastrous retreat from Russia. 1812.
John Jay, a Founding Father of the United States, was sworn in as the first chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. 1789.
Peter Tosh (born October 19, 1944, Grange Hill, Jamaica—died September 11, 1987, Kingston) was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and a founding member of the Wailers, a popular reggae band of the 1960s and early 1970s.
