When I first became friends with American colleagues they occasionally mildly ribbed me about you winning in 1812. They were genuinly shocked that I did not have a clue what they were talking about.

To Britain 1812 was a minor skirmish in which we burnt down the white house but no one knows why or what it was about as it was taking place during a world wide war with British victories from South America to India from South Africa to Egypt and from Spain to Denmark.