War of 1812

@DownTheStreet "British North America"... So, the British, technically... However this sheds light into another very interesting topic: nationality: So people in Canada were "British" in 1866, and then magically became "Canadians" in 1867"

Ethnically, Americans and Canadians were exactly the same, but some political decisions created two "different" nationalities, American and Canadian... Which goes to show that nationality is a rather abstract concept that is the result of a piece of paper, nothing founded on any "race" or "ethnicity" like some people like to believe... Boundaries between countries are highly arbitrary...

@DownTheStreet Parts of it, like Upper and Lower Canada, were under british rule. But Canada did not become its own country until 1867

@drymer I agree to most except for Quebec - very few French in what is now the USA.

@DownTheStreet That it's correct, but regarding this particular topic (the war of 1812) the military in Canada was really British... The French were never (to this day) very happy to be part of an "Anglo" country and in those early days the British military didn't quite trusted the loyalty of the French, so the military was kept essentially British...

@DownTheStreet Canada was not considered a country until 1867. Therefore, they didn't do anything in the War of 1812. The country, in this context, refers to its government and people, not to land mass.

@DownTheStreet If you want to be technical about it, Canada as a nation didn't exist, so it would have been impossible for Canadians to exist, and hence impossible for them to burn down the White House.

We are still part of the British Commonwealth. @DownTheStreet