4 ms·
Unrelated to the license plates, but the war is remembered differently in Canada, in Britain, and by historians. I think Wikipedia has it right calling the war
by Naga 3y ago
Unrelated to the license plates, but the war is remembered differently in Canada, in Britain, and by historians. I think Wikipedia has it right calling the war "indecisive". In Canada, the war is remembered as the time we trounced the Yankees and burned the White House. The Brits don't think much of the war at all. Historians say its much more complicated of course, but the key facts to remember are (despite what the Canadians say) the troops that burned the White House were British regulars, not Canadian militia, and that the militia was highly unreliable and had significant levels of desertions (despite the national pride now). It's also good to keep in mind that Britain was in the midst of a total war with Napoleonic France and that the Americas were a sideshow. The US distinguished itself early with the frigate battles, like the Constitution vs Java, but then there was the Shannon vs Chesapeake.
- bee_rider 3y agoThe high rate of desertions should be a point of pride, it was a dumb war. It is embarrassing that the British Empire couldn’t achieve a full victory against what was, at the time, a regional power. It is embarrassing that the US couldn’t fend off a sideshow invasion. It is embarrassing the whole thing couldn’t have been sorted out diplomatically. Nothing was accomplished by the war but a bunch of buildings burning down and some tens of thousands dying. The deserters look pretty good in retrospect.
- bmelton 3y ago> The Brits don't think much of the war at all. I've never studied history, and especially have never studied it abroad, but I think I've just always assumed that nations who've lost wars don't generally spend a lot of time educating their students about them. I'm sure there are exceptions to this - World Wars 1 and 2 seem too big to go missing from literature, for example, and perhaps this is my naive, too-literal interpretation of "history is written by the victors," but I'd just always expect losses to either be minimized, or be taught exclusively to vilify a persistent enemy.
- schimmy_changa 3y agoMostly just... the British have a LOT of history and so the stacked ranking of wars over the course of just the British Empire includes over a dozen more consequential wars than the War of 1812. The poor high school students have enough names and dates to remember!
- Tempest1981 3y agoThe Vietnam war might be another exception.
- phpisthebest 3y agoit really is a shame we (the US) were not able to take all of the land that is now Canada...
- DaveExeter 3y ago[flagged]
- tssva 3y agoExcept for the Star Spangled Banner being written, it mostly isn't remembered at all in the US. The French and Indian War got more coverage in my US history class and that is a pre-revolution British/French war.