Sunday, August 24, 2014 marked the 200th anniversary of the burning of Washington – including the White House – by the British in the War of 1812.
The Brits celebrated the event in a very, um, interesting way with this tweet from the British Embassy in D.C.:
Commemorating the 200th anniversary of burning the White House. Only sparklers this time! pic.twitter.com/QIDBQTBmmL
— British Embassy Washington (@UKinUSA) August 24, 2014
When I first saw that tweet I was like, Excuse me?!
I mean, who bakes a cake to celebrate burning down another country’s capital in that country’s capital?! How rude!
Then I was all, “Whatever, I can’t hear you over the sound of my FREEDOM!”
But finally, I was like, “Ok, UK, we’ve had this special relationship for 2 centuries now and we’ve been through a couple world wars together, we’re cool.”
I know it wasn’t serious, but apparently the Embassy thought too many people took it that way and they apologized for the tweet:
Apologies for earlier Tweet. We meant to mark an event in history & celebrate our strong friendship today http://t.co/gs3heJDMzt
— British Embassy Washington (@UKinUSA) August 25, 2014
Haha, all’s well that ends well.
What’s your reaction to this controversial tweet from the British Embassy in Washington?