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Cookouts, fireworks and the "1812 Overture." On the Fourth of July, we hold these truths to be self-evidently American, right? Don't light the cannon fuses just yet. The "1812 Overture" may be an American tradition, with its patriotic strains and thunderous battery. But while orchestras across the land, including the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra tonight at Point State Park, will perform it with clanging bells and cannon fire, the music could hardly be any more distant from the Stars and Stripes. That's because the overture, written by famed composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, depicts Napoleon's retreat from Russia in 1812, not America's...

The human cost of the War of 1812 was dramatic. Some 35,000 people were killed, wounded or missing at the end of the war. York (now Toronto), Niagara (now Niagara-on-the-Lake) and Washington, D.C. were torched. Elsewhere, homes and properties were looted and damaged and family lives were thrown into chaos. The borders between British North America and the United States might not have changed when the fighting stopped — the old lines were reconfirmed in the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war on December 24, 1814. But once the treaty was signed, there wasn’t simply a return to the...

Like so many other things in history, the further back that they are, the more we take them for granted. In this case, it would be a mistake to not reflect upon this 196th Anniversary of the "Battle of New Orleans" and the fact that it could be referred to as the United States' "Agincourt". The British military intent in the "War of 1812" was to emasculate their former North American Colonies by shutting off their abilities to trade with the rest of the world. The British were flush from completing the defeat of Napoleon and had the experienced and...

"I created this little slideshow video after I heard the narrated story of the Battle of Baltimore and Fort McHenry where Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner. I had to cut the last 20 seconds of the song because of YouTubes 10 minute max. Hope you enjoy it. God Bless America." AlaskaPatriot

Aboard a pontoon boat chugging past the marshland of Maryland's upper Patuxent River on a recent Saturday, Ralph Eshelman pointed to the spot where the muddy brown water hides a shipwreck nearly two centuries old, part of the American flotilla that defended the Chesapeake Bay when the British burned Washington during the War of 1812. Nearly 30 years ago, Eshelman helped direct a team of marine researchers who discovered the wreck, one of the war's most significant artifacts. After a limited, month-long excavation of the site east of Upper Marlboro in 1980, the wreck was reburied under four feet of...

During the summer of 1814, British warships sailed into the Chesapeake Bay and headed towards Washington. The warships sailed up the Patuxent River and anchored at Benedict, Maryland on August 19, 1814. Over 4,500 British soldiers landed and marched towards Washington. The British mission was to capture Washington and seek revenge for the burning of their British Capitol in Canada, for which they held the United States responsible. A force of 7,000 Americans was hastily assembled near the Potomac River to defend Washington. During the afternoon of August 24, in 100°F heat, the two armies clashed. The British Army quickly...

HARTLAND, Vt. (AP) — The 130-acre property was exactly what Michel Guite and his family wanted: an old Vermont farm with mountain views, rolling hills and meadows. There was, however, one wrinkle: The property included a small family cemetery — with the grave of a War of 1812 veteran — surrounded by a fence on a scenic knoll. His proposal to move the graveyard so he can build a house and barn has set off protests. The town has passed a resolution aimed at blocking the move, a descendant of one occupant of the graveyard is trying to fight him...

We have met the enemy and they are ours: Two Ships, two Brigs, one Schooner & one Sloop. Yours, with great respect and esteemO.H. Perry. With these words, 28 year old Oliver Hazard Perry gave notice that the British would never again be a naval power on the Great Lakes, and would be forced to resupply Fort Detroit (earlier lost by the U.S.--in fact, you could say that the British were kicking our butts up and down the continent) by land, through what now is Ontario. Apart from his decisive, and strategic, victory Perry is remembered for transferring his...

By Alison AuldThe Canadian PressHALIFAX (Sep 22, 2006) A stash of loot possibly stolen from the White House in the early 1800s is at the centre of an international dispute over who owns the bounty that now rests in a watery grave off the Nova Scotia coast.A U.S. exploration company has laid claim to the bounty on what it suspects is the HMS Fantome, a navy brig that was loaded with goods British and Canadian soldiers made off with after ransacking the White House and Capitol buildings during the War of 1812.The company, Sovereign Exploration Associates International Inc., has...

“Man and Woman”, “Wife”, “Husband”, “Widow”, “Widower” Banished From all Ontario Law Terms, when referring to spouses, are banned from all government programs, services, documentsToronto, February 25, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – With the obscenely rapid, three-day introduction and passage of its same-sex “marriage” Bill 171, the Ontario government has advanced a revolutionary change in the way all laws and government programs and institutions refer to marriage and married persons. Everything referring to spouses must now be gender neutral. No longer can a married couple be referred to as “husband and wife” or “man and woman”. The terms “Widow” and “widower” are...

Being somewhat older than most folks here and a film buff for all those years I could speak and listen, the thread on Favorite War films got me to thinking. There are many fine war films that have never been seen by those born past 1970, so I have put as many as I could remember. Just cut & paste the film's title into IMDb search mode and click away. IMDb is at http://us.imdb.com/ There are so many genres of films, television series and mini-series about warfare, so I will start threads to list all your favorites in each category:...

Being somewhat older than most folks here and a film buff for all those years I could speak and listen, the thread on Favorite War films got me to thinking. There are many fine war films that have never been seen by those born past 1970, so I have put as many as I could remember. Just cut & paste the film's title into IMDb search mode and click away. IMDb is at http://us.imdb.com/ There are so many genres of films, television series and mini-series about warfare, so I will start threads to list all your favorites in each category:...

Being somewhat older than most folks here and a film buff for all those years I could speak and listen, the thread on Favorite War films got me to thinking. There are many fine war films that have never been seen by those born past 1970, so I have put as many as I could remember. Just cut & paste the film's title into IMDb search mode and click away. IMDb is at http://us.imdb.com/ There are so many genres of films, television series and mini-series about warfare, so I will start threads to list all your favorites in each category:...

Mr. Robinson, a former British military intelligence officer, is apparently bothered by the possibility that American policy is in some way a function of Southern notions of honour. In his assertions, though, Mr. Robinson is mistaken as to American history, Greek literature, what precisely honour is and how it functioned both historically and presently. I will reply to him in the fashion the ancients preferred, “point by point.” It is true that the Old South saw blacks as essentially outside of the realm of honour, which was part and parcel of the desire in the Old South to see blacks...

<p>If diplomacy does not create a unified military front against Iraq's Saddam Hussein and the United States goes to war to disarm him, it won't be the nation's first solo expedition against terrorist regimes.</p> <p>Much of America's early military history was set against the background of fighting terrorist regimes without the no-shows from other nations. The terrorist regimes were located in the Mediterranean, and as part of a British colony, Americans saw the mother country begin the policy of paying tribute to the so-called Barbary nations there — Morocco, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli.</p>