DID will not publish on July 4th. We hope our readers in Canada and the USA have enjoyed this week from Canada Day on July 1 to Independence Day on July 4, celebrating freedom, friendship and long-standing peace across the world’s longest undefended border.

Fortunately, the Americans elected not to hold a grudge over the the 1814 expedition that burned down the White House et. al. As a reaction to the war’s events, however, Upper Canada moved its administrative center (later Canada’s capitol) from York (now Toronto) on Lake Ontario to the frigid swamps of Ottawa. Ottawa is now the world’s second coldest capitol city, ahead of Moscow and behind only Mongolia’s Ulan Bator.

America’s second most divisive war had left little appetite for further hostilities, and it is possible that the Canadian version of “capitol punishment” was seen as sufficient requite in and of itself.