Below are three fun facts regarding events in history that occurred on October 19, the most recent of which took place a little over 30 years ago: 1781: Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown On this day in 1781, British General Charles Cornwallis formally surrenders 8,000 British soldiers and seamen to a French and American force at Yorktown, Virginia, effectively bringing an end to the American Revolution and paving the way for American independence. Interestingly, as the British and Hessian troops marched out to surrender, the British band played the song "The World Upside Down." The Treaty of Paris, signed in 1783, formally recognized the United States as a free and independent nation. 1796: Editorial accuses Jefferson of affair with slave On October 19, 1796, an essay appears in the Gazette of the United States in which a writer by the name of "Phocion" craftily attacks presidential candidate Thomas Jefferson, who was running against incumbent president John...

On this day in 1783, The American Revolution finally comes to a close with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. Involving representatives of the United States, Great Britain, France, and Spain, it cemented America’s status as a free nation, as Britain formally recognized the independence of its 13 former American colonies, and the boundaries of the new republic were established: Florida north to the Great Lakes and the Atlantic coast west to the Mississippi River. The events leading up to the treaty dated back to April 1775, when American colonists in Lexington, Massachusetts responded to King George III’s refusal to grant them economic and political reform with armed revolution. On July 4, 1776, more than a year after the first shots of the war rang out, the Second Continental Congress officially adopted the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson. Five years later, in October 1781, British General Charles Lord Cornwallis surrendered to American and French forces a...

I was just telling my coworker how tempted I am to sit this election out. To me, the presumptive Republican and Democratic nominees -- Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, respectively -- are equally lousy. And I think we have the media to blame for glorifying them. We know all politicians have a few skeletons in their closet, but these two take it to a whole new level. Trump has made disparaging remarks about women, Muslims, fellow Republicans, and other groups. His reluctance to release his tax returns has dogged his campaign. And many within his own party don't even regard him as a true conservative, for he has taken liberal positions on a host of issues in the past. (Not to mention he, as a former Democrat, donated boatloads of money to various Democratic campaigns.) For Clinton's part, the email scandal has proven to be an albatross around her neck, as are Benghazi and her husband's affairs, which many feel will forever blight his legacy. Poll after poll shows t...