Did we forget the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812?

On June 1, 1812 President Madison and the US Congress declared war on Great Britain and Canada, nominally because the British were kidnapping and forcing American seamen on the high seas to become Royal Navy seamen, along with a few other of such odd issues.

Britain was tied down with Napoleon in Europe, and we knew it. It is hardly ever considered or mentioned that what we really wanted was to annex Canada, which we invaded to that end at least twice during the war, only to be defeated each time, losing the city of Detroit and nearly all of Michigan in the process. Did I mention that in 1812 there were only roughly 6,000 British soldiers defending all of Canada?

Eventually the White House was even burned down.

In any event both sides eventually decided they had enough, and both sides declared that all of their objectives were fully satisfied, and then peace negotiations started in late 1814 and concluded sometime in early 1815.

The bottom line is that this is a war which we started and which can be considered the first humiliating defeat for the USA, as the thinking was that Canada would be an easy pushover, but it beat us in every battle fought there. Perhaps that is why this war is hardly mentioned here, and on June 1, 2012 we did not hold a 200 year celebration of our humiliation.

Come to think of it, did Canada recently celebrate the 200th anniversary of its military victory over the USA?

But we got a really good song out of it and some really great central banking!

We don't celebrate our entry into WW1 or Korea or Vietnam either.

At that time there were probably as many people in the U.S. that were still leaning towards an English Gov..

Actually, didn't we take and hold parts of Canada? Ontario for example the US defeated and held as well as one of the great lakes. The US also defeated the British and it's Native American allies in the south. I'm sure there are a few other areas where the US triumphed over the Canadians, British and their allies.

Canada did make one fatal error though. They gave Michigan back.

I gleaned through the wiki as I can't remember spending a great deal of time learning about this war in school. There seems to be quite a bit of good info on the war here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812

Although there were certainly victories for the US forces, the three times they invaded into Canada they were defeated each time. We are very lucky that Napoleon was keeping the British at home, as otherwise we might be British citizens at this juncture.

lsayre wrote:Although there were certainly victories for the US forces, the three times they invaded into Canada they were defeated each time. We are very lucky that Napoleon was keeping the British at home, as otherwise we might be British citizens at this juncture.

And the difference would be???

jpete wrote:And the difference would be???

Good point! We have morphed into the British.