Burnt at Birth

‘In 1812 we were just sitting around. Minding our own business, putting crops in the ground. We heard the soldiers coming and didn’t like that sound. So, we took a boat to Washington and burnt it to the ground’ – So says a Canadian country song played in popular pubs and bars, recalling the era when the idea of liberty, equality and fraternity was in it nascent stage, when america denied the rights for women to vote the issued death warrants to black slaves who ran away from their masters.

This has been the only time since the Revolutionary War that a foreign power has captured and occupied the United States capital.