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Did the British forget about 1812? Cos we will never.
by casey2 6mo ago
Did the British forget about 1812? Cos we will never.
- libraryofbabel 6mo agoI’m a Brit who lives in the US. Can confirm 99% of British people have never heard of the war of 1812, and even if they are a military history nerd and they have heard of it, they will consider it a minor sideshow to the main event of the era, which was Britain fighting France in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars from 1793-1815. The US just wasn’t very important geopolitically 214 years ago. Sorry we burned y’all’s White House (ok not that sorry). Actually sorry we gave Andrew Jackson his opportunity to become famous by fighting a completely pointless battle after the war had already ended.
- ben_w 6mo agoIf you ask about "1812" in the UK, you'll get a lot of blank stares and a few people saying "The Overture?". That once piece by Tchaikovsky is almost certainly better known in the UK than not only the war but the sum total of all American events between the US war of independence and the US Civil War. I only know that the war of 1812 happened at all because I'm the right kind of nerd, and even then I know very little about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1812_Overture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1812_Overture