This Is a Good One: 5 Tips for That War of 1812 Party You're Planning

From the June 18th Mental_Floss Blog "5 Tips for That War of 1812 Bicentennial Party You're Probably Planning" by Ethan Trex.

I got a kick out of reading these suggestions.

1.  DO NOT kidnap and sailors. (Especially those from the Sailabration.  This could cause your neighbors to call the cops.)

2.  DO pace yourself.  Not a whole lot really happened.  Most fighting in 1813, treaty ratified 1814, deciding battle 1815. (Well, I'm not sure how it can be a deciding battle if the war is over.  Probably the best-known battle, though.)

3.  DON'T even think about looting the White House.  Besides getting yourself arrested and in big trouble, the ship carrying the captured loot from it sank off Nova Scotia coast on the way back and the British never got any of it. (Crime doesn't pay.)

4.  DO launch bottle rockets to get some of that red glare in your backyard.  These were Congreve rockets, a giant iron bottle rocket mounted on a 15-foot-long bamboo pole that could go a mile and create quite a bit of destruction but were extremely inaccurate.  (You might hit some neighbors mad at you for destroying their house.)

5.  DON'T forget to visit Brookeville, Maryland.  President James Madison hid here August 26, 1814.  It was a little rural settlement 18 miles from Washington, D.C..  Madison ran the country from here for a day.  The town's 140 residents still call their town "U.S. Capital for a Day."  (I didn't know that.  On my travel itinerary now.)

I Wonder If They Drank Beer Back Then?  Gotta Have Beer At a Backyard Cookout.  --Brock-Perry