Equal Opportunity Arsonists

Happy  200th  Anniversary 

of the 

Star Spangled Banner

Americans were equal opportunity arsonists: a year before British forces burned Washington D.C., Americans  sacked and burned York (present-day Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada. After an ammunition explosion at a garrison killed 300 Americans, irate American soldiers responded by burning York’s provincial parliament and other public buildings. A British imperial lion looted by the Americans is still possessed by the U.S. Naval Academy.