The Battle of Yorktown was the battle that ended the Revolutionary War. It took place in 1777 in Yorktown, Virginia, where the British troops were camped out. The Americans and French were fighting against the British Redcoats, who were led by Lord Cornwallis. General Washington and his troops trapped the British with the help of French leaders Count Rochambeau, the Marquis de Lafayette and General Anthony Wayne.

Generals Washington and Rochambeau tricked the British into thinking they would be in New York, but actually they went south to Virginia. They surrounded the British by land and cut off their escape route by the York River. Cornwallis was not able to get reinforcements. General Cornwallis was forced to surrender his troops at Yorktown.

It is said that the British fife and drums played the song The World Turned Upside Down when the battle ended because now the colonies belonged to America, not to the British.

Lord North, the British Prime Minister, quit his job after the defeat at Yorktown. The next Prime Minister thought the British should end the war and make peace with America and France.

The British surrendered at Yorktown on October 17, 1781.  The agreement to end the Revolutionary War was called the Treaty of Paris which was signed in 1783. That treaty sealed the peace between Great Britain and the new country of the United States.