Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Beej]

For about the 100th time the following happened to me last weekend: sitting in a bar having a drink with a buddy, a guy comes up to me and asks where I from, I say USA. Then the guy says " we kicked your ass in the War of 1812, We burned down the White House. Canada Rocks"

Is this what is taught in Canadian schools? Is this the defining moment in (non) Canadian history?
I say non because there was no Canada in 1812.

[RACETRAITOR]

I'm going to take your side and say this guy is being a dick. Yes, the War of 1812 is curriculum in our history classes. No, the country wasn't officially called Canada at the time.

But who were the people living in the US in 1775? Were they not Americans? Did they all get up and leave as soon as the country decided to become a godless republic?

[Ya-ta Boy]

Our war aims were to get the British to stop arming Indians (the terrorists of the day) in the Old Northwest and to stop impressing our sailors on the high seas. We achieved our war aims. 'They' burned down a building. So yes, the notAmericans won the war.

[diver]

Well, it wasn't what I was taught in school (and many Canadians miss the fact that Canada couldnt have kicked anyone's ass in 1812 because it didn't exist...you get an A+).

However, I was in school many years ago, and looking at some of the youngsters that I meet here...I have no idea what they are teaching them in school these days.

Sheesh, I had a girlfriend looking for a Laura Secord chocolate shop while in a shopping mall in Florida. She asked me if I thought they had a Laura Secord shop. I said (as a joke) 'Yeah...I saw one near the entrance next to the Benedict Arnold Shoe Store'. Then she went around looking for the Benedict Arnold Shoe Store. That was the last time I dated someone much younger than myself.

[uberscheisse]

"we burned down the white house!!! ahhh!!! woohoo!!! now let's go home".

[Wangja]

[riverboy]

Let me the first to say, we were never taught to start a conversation about burning the Whitehouse when we first meet an American. I apologise on behalf of the thousands of moderately sane Canadians in Korea and elsewhere.
If it were me I would only start a conversation saying how we kicked you a$$ in Hockey!

[Sooke]

from wiki:

The War of 1812 was fought between the United States of America and Britain and its colonies in British North America (see Upper Canada and Lower Canada) from 1812 to 1815 on land and sea. The Americans had hoped for a quick win as Britain was at war with Napoleon. Despite several notable successes by US frigates and the menace of American privateers to British trade, the Royal Navy established a strict blockade of American trade causing economic hardship; on land the US invasion was repulsed and British forces counterattacked across the border burning Washington and occupying Maine, but unsuccessfully attacking some well defended major cities. The war ended with the Treaty of Ghent, restoring North America to status quo ante bellum.

The main reasons for America declaring war on the British were:

1)American Expansionists noticed that the Canadian colonies were only lightly defended by the British, and some Americans believed that the majority in English-speaking areas, at least, would rise up and greet an American invading army as liberators: as Thomas Jefferson suggested in 1812, "the acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching, and will give us the experience for the attack on Halifax . . .
2)The United Kingdom's refusal to surrender western forts promised to the United States in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the American War of Independence, together with allegations that Britain was arming North American Indians fighting against Americans on the western frontier;
3)The boarding of American ships by the Royal Navy on the high seas to search for alleged deserters, and the forced impressment of American and naturalized American citizens as British seamen; and
4)The trade embargoes by the United Kingdom and France during the Napoleonic Wars, which resulted in the seizure of hundreds of American merchant ships.
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The real irony, IMO, was that if there wasn't an American attack on British holdings in Upper and Lower Canada, as well as Nova Scotia, the British North American Colonies (kind of collectively known as 'Canada') would likely have joined the US sometime in the 19th century. The war created a type of 'Canadian' identity. That identity, obviously, was that 'Canada is not America'. C'mon, seriously, if someone invaded your country, and your country was much smaller and weaker than the invader, would that not do something to the psyche of the nation that was defending itself (with or without help from a much stronger 'Mother' country?)

Still, this stuff was almost 200 years ago. Lighten up a bit.

[flotsam]

Rematch.

[FlagWaver]

[Sooke]

[SPINOZA]

[diver]

[flotsam]

[djsmnc]

The American Civil War was more cool because there were Ironclads and hats shaped like crushed cans.

The War of 1812? I didn't think anyone actually paid attention to that one in history class. That one only took up a few pages. Just like the half page dedicated to the Korean War.