The Siege of Yorktown, Virginia, the decisive battle in
America’s shocking triumph over the mighty British
Empire in its War of Independence, began on this day
in history, Sept. 28, 1781.
The siege ended three weeks later, on Oct. 19, with the
surrender of the British garrison led by Lord Charles
Cornwallis.
Painting depicts the surrender of the British at Yorktown.
Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Catholic priest, launched the Mexican
War of Independence with the issuing of his Grito de Dolores, or
“Cry of Dolores.” The revolutionary tract, so-named because it
was publicly read by Hidalgo in the town of Dolores, called for the
end of 300 years of Spanish rule in Mexico, redistribution of land
and racial equality. Thousands of Indians and mestizos flocked to Hidalgo’s banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and soon the peasant
army was on the march to Mexico City.
Don Miguel Gregorio Antonio Ignacio Hidalgo y Costilla
y Gallaga Mandarte Villaseñor (8 May 1753 – 30 July 1811)
Stone as a G.I. in Vietnam / 1968.
For his service, he received military honors such as the Bronze
Star with "V" Device for valor, the Purple Heart with Oak Leaf
Cluster, the National Defense Service Medal, the Vietnam Service
Medal with one Silver Service Star.
Film director, producer, and screenwriter William Oliver Stone is
77 years old today.
1991
A German U-boat sunk a British troop ship, the Laconia, killing
more than 1,400 men on September 12, 1942. The commander
of the German sub, Capt. Werner Hartenstein, realizing that
Italians POWs were among the passengers, strove to aid in
their rescue.
The Laconia, a former Cunard White Star ship put to use to
transport troops, including prisoners of war, was in the South
Atlantic bound for England when it encountered U-156, a
German sub (below). It was under the command of Captain
Rudolph Sharp.
Werner Hartenstein
(27 February 1908 – 8 March 1943)
General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Allied Commander, speaking at the opening of the surrender ceremonies, on
board USS Missouri (BB-63).
Aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Japan formally
surrendered to the Allies, bringing an end to World
War II.
By the summer of 1945, the defeat of Japan was a foregone
conclusion. The Japanese navy and air force were destroyed.
The Allied naval blockade of Japan and intensive bombing of
Japanese cities had left the country and its economy devastated.
At the end of June, the Americans captured Okinawa, a Japanese
island from which the Allies could launch an invasion of the main Japanese home islands.
August 6, the U.S. B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic
bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing an estimated
80,000 people and fatally wounding thousands more.
On August 9, a second U.S. atomic bomb was dropped on the
Japanese coastal city of Nagasaki.
Army General Douglas MacArthur signs the Instrument of Surrender.
