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)
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.