The War of 1812 is important, although these days it is mostly treated as some comical footnote. It is kind of crazy to think that America could have lost and ended up back under British control. Imagine the insanity today if the British Army managed capture Washington D.C. and burned down the White House like they did more than 200 years ago.
I’m still salty about the aliens destroying Washington D.C. in Independence Day and that was just a movie. I can’t begin to imagine how aggrieved I would be if it happened for real. But I digress.
For some reason, this skirmish between American and British forces is called the War of 1812 despite not ending until 1815. Well done to whoever was in charge of naming the conflict. The whole thing kicked off because of impressment. You’re probably not familiar with that having not been born during the early 1800s when the British Royal Navy was terrorizing the seas.
Impressment was basically the British Navy boarding ships and forcing some crew members to join them. The redcoats boarded some American vessels, pressed some of the crew into service. This didn’t go over well with the US government and was one of the key factors for the War of 1812 starting.
A bunch of notable stuff came out of this time in America and the War of 1812 is important, even if no one outside the world of history pays much attention to it.
3 reasons why the War of 1812 is important
1) The Star-Spangled Banner
So, you know that really slow, kind of boring song they play before sporting events? That came out of the War of 1812. Francis Scott Key wrote a poem about a British attack on Baltimore. Something about a flag and rockets, you probably know the rest. Anyway, someone put it to music and more than 100 years later it was made the national anthem.
That’s right, it was just some unofficial song about America until 1931. About 80 years later, rednecks would complain about people not standing for it during sporting events despite not knowing this because, you know, America.
2) It created presidents
A who’s who of presidents you probably don’t remember because they came after Thomas Jefferson all played a role in the War of 1812. Of course, Andrew Jackson was a general during the War of 1812 and you probably have heard of him. But what about the others?
James Monroe was Secretary of State during the war and won the presidential election in 1816 during the aftermath of the war. He did some good things – recognizing newly independent Spanish territories, stabilizing the country – and some not so great things like signing the Missouri Compromise.
John Quincy Adams helped negotiate the peace treaty that ended The War of 1812 and took over the presidency from Monroe. William Henry Harrison was an Army General during the war and took office in 1840. He was in office for 30 days, which remains the record for shortest presidency in US history.
3) American-UK relations didn’t escalate to war again
While the relationship between the US and UK wasn’t exactly great throughout the 19th century, the countries managed to avoid war with one another. Trade even developed between the former rivals. However, several border disputes almost brought the entire relationship crashing down on several occasions.
