The Revolutionary War (1775-83), also known as the American Revolution, arose from growing tensions between residents of Great Britain’s 13 North American colonies and the colonial government, which represented the British crown. Skirmishes between British troops and colonial militiamen in Lexington and Concord in April 1775 kicked off the armed conflict, and by the following summer, the rebels were waging a full-scale war for their independence. France entered the American Revolution on the side of the colonists in 1778, turning what had essentially been a civil war into an international conflict.
A decisive French naval victory brought the October 1781 surrender of the second British army lost in the American Revolution. Shooting war between Britain and France allied with Spain continued for another two years. But at Yorktown, the British lost their will to contest American independence.
