Archive: The War of 1812
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This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Ruoste ei kysy auton ikää eikä arvoa. Espoon Kolarikorjaamo tekee ruostekorjaukset ja suojaukset ammattitaidolla kaikenikäisille autoille. Espoon Kolarikorjaamo.fi Asioita, joista on epävarma. Onko nyt hyvä hetki muuttaa uusiin tiloihin? Entäs sitten, kun markkina taas kääntyy? Tarvitaanko me enemmän tilaa etätyölle, lähityölle, hybridille? No, sitten asioita, joista on varma. Meidän olisi hyvä vuokrata tilat sellaisilta, joka on varma. Kun ajat ovat epävarmat, mitä jos vuokranantaja olisi varma? Niinpä, kysy toimitilaa alan suositelluimalta vuokranantajalta.
This is In Our Time from BBC Radio 4, and this is one of more than a thousand episodes you can find in the In Our Time archive. A reading list for this edition can be found in the episode description wherever you're listening. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello. In this episode of the Summer Selection of In Our Time, Melvin and his guests assess the War of 1812. After the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars, the British sought to restrict trade between the United States and Britain's enemy, France. Lacking enough sailors for its many naval engagements, the British also tried to press gang Americans to make up for that shortfall. Frustrated by British policy, the United States, only just over three decades old at this time, declared war in June 1812.
The youthful country also saw this as an opportunity to try to absorb Canada into their federation. But the biggest losers in this war were the indigenous peoples of North America. Working with the British, who supplied them with arms, the loosely allied indigenous tribes suffered serious defeats. This enabled settlers to accelerate the bloody process of driving the indigenous people out of their traditional lands. In popular memory, the British long ago dismissed the war as an unimportant sideshow of the Napoleonic Wars, preferring instead to dwell on victories against the French Emperor like Waterloo. But for the US, Canada and the indigenous peoples, it remains a critical but highly contested subject of historical study.
And there are some interesting quirks that you'll hear about in this episode. Did you know, for example, that the tune of the Star Spangled Banner, whose lyrics were written during this war, was an old British drinking song? I know I didn't. Enjoy listening.
Hello, in 1814, a 35-year-old American lawyer, Francis Scott Key, wrote a poem which he called Defense of Fort McHenry. He'd just observed the shelling of Baltimore's fort by British ships during the War of 1812, a conflict between Britain and the USA which lasted for three years. The British were keen to capture Baltimore, but despite sustained bombardment, the city didn't capitulate. Scott Key's poem was later set to music and renamed The Star-Spangled Banner and became the USA's national anthem. Although this song is now famous the world over, the War of 1812, which inspired it, is today often forgotten and overlooked. It was the first foreign war to be declared by the recently independent USA and is widely seen among historians as having had a profound effect on how Americans and Canadians perceive themselves.
It also had a devastating effect on the Native Americans. With me to discuss the War of 1812, its causes and aftermath are Kathleen Burke, Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at University College London, Lawrence Goldman, Fellow in Modern History at St Peter's College, University of Oxford, and Frank Cogliano, Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh. Kathleen Burke... The early 19th century was a very difficult period for European, particularly West European history. What was the international situation in the years immediately before this 1812 war?
Well, the international situation wasn't very complicated. It was essentially a huge, long-lasting and devastating war between the greatest land power, which of course was the French Empire, and the greatest sea power, which was Great Britain.
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