🇺🇸 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗨𝗥𝗥𝗘𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗥 𝗢𝗙 𝗟𝗢𝗥𝗗 𝗖𝗢𝗥𝗡𝗪𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗜𝗦 — 𝗢𝗖𝗧𝗢𝗕𝗘𝗥 𝟭𝟵, 𝟭𝟳𝟴𝟭 On this day in 1781, the British Army at Yorktown, Virginia, surrendered to the combined American and French forces of General George Washington and Lieutenant General Comte de Rochambeau. After weeks of siege and relentless artillery bombardment, approximately 8,000 British and German troops under Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis were trapped. French Admiral de Grasse's fleet had blocked British relief by sea, while Washington and Rochambeau closed the noose on land. On October 19, the British marched out to surrender. Cornwallis himself did not appear, citing illness. Brigadier General Charles O'Hara instead presented himself to Washington, who directed him to Major General Benjamin Lincoln to formally accept the surrender. Yorktown did not immediately end the Revolutionary War, but it effectively destroyed Britain's ability and political will to continue major offensive operations against the Americans. Nearly two years later, the Treaty of Paris formally recognized the independence of the United States. Yorktown was the battlefield victory that made American independence virtually irreversible. What do you consider the decisive factor at Yorktown—the Franco-American siege, Washington's strategy, or French naval control of the Chesapeake? #OTD #AmericanRevolution #Yorktown #MilitaryHistory #USHistory

US Army Rangers from 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment during urban warfare training in Georgia.

❤️🇺🇸 #RedFriday 🇺🇸❤️

81 years ago today, American infantry hitch a ride on a Sherman tank belonging to the 3rd Armored Division in Stolberg, Germany. 🪖

Oct 14, 1947: Chuck Yeager flew faster than the speed of sound, nursing two broken ribs he hid from the Air Force. Yeager was a farm kid from West Virginia who became a fighter ace in World War II. He was shot down over France, escaped over the Pyrenees with help from the French Resistance, and talked his way back into combat. He once shot down five German planes in a single day. After the war he became a test pilot on the Bell X-1, a rocket plane built to break the sound barrier. Pilots worried that planes would shake apart as they approached the speed of sound. Some had already died trying. Two nights before the flight, Yeager fell off a horse while riding with his wife Glennis and broke two ribs. He didn't tell the flight surgeon because he knew he'd be grounded. He told a fellow engineer, Jack Ridley, who cut him a piece of broomstick so he could use it as a lever to close the hatch without his right arm. The X-1, which Yeager named Glamorous Glennis after his wife, was carried up under a B-29 and dropped. Yeager lit the rocket and climbed. At around 43,000 feet over the California desert, the needle on his gauge jumped past Mach 1. People on the ground heard a boom. The flight was kept secret for months. The whole country later knew him through The Right Stuff.