A Tornado Saved America
History is full of ironies.
To Americans, all tornadoes are curses. Except one. Let me call it the Twister of 1814. It turned out to be a surprisingly positive twist of fate for the young republic.
1814 was the year of an oft-forgotten war that gave birth to "The Star-Spangled Banner," our oft-heard and sung national anthem.
An oft-forgotten war? Yup. That's why it deserves an honorable mention here. Frankly, the War (1812-1814) should have been imprinted on our collective memory:
Having had surrendered its thirteen colonies to the U.S. in 1783, the British Empire felt a strong urge to humble its former subjects. Soon enough, the British naval practice of impressment was weaponized to choke off the U.S. maritime trade.
(Impressment? It's a fancy word for body-snatching, meaning that the British navy simply scooped up American males and forced them to work like slaves for their former colonial master.)
On August 24th, 1814, the British overran the U.S. Capital. In a celebratory mood, they made "fireworks" out of a city-wide blaze, highlighted by the burning of the White House.
The British "fireworks" went on unabated the next day, August 25th. Then came a freakish rainy tornado which dramatically put out the fire and let the American defenders snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Quite literally, the British camps were swept away from American soil. *
Interestingly, this American tornado of defiance had somehow inspired Canadian self-rule, but that's another story.
Author: renqiulan
*The war was officially concluded with the Treaty of Ghent signed on December 24th, 1814. American independence stayed unchanged.
