William Happer

It was just a tremendous hurricane.

And so...

And the reason it affected the war was the British just assumed that the French were incapable of restoring their fleet.

So when Cornwallis decided to try and escape from the Carolinas up into Virginia to the British fleet to be rescued with all of the partisans coming after him –

He didn't worry about the French.

But the French had managed to rebuild their fleet after the hurricane.

They had had 12 months, and they had enough ships that they were able to barricade the mouth of the Chesapeake.

And when Cornwallis got there, he was trapped.

Because the British couldn't come in to rescue him, you know, from Rhode Island or wherever they were.

And so he had no choice.

He had to surrender.

Wow.

That was the end of the war.

And we can thank the hurricane for making that happen so neatly.

The French and the French.

God bless the French.

What was it like then?

It was the peak of the Dust Bowl and it was, I don't know, several degrees warmer than, I don't know the exact figure, but you can look at the records, they're pretty clear.