“Bitch, I just twerked and played James Madison’s flute from the 1800s.”

As a piece of architecture, the White House looks pretty good these days, driveway construction projects aside. Then again, it’s been 198 years since an invading British army torched the place.

August 24, 1814 — the day that the British came to Washington and lit it ablaze. Certainly the most memorable moment of the War of 1812, the Burning of Washington was conducted by British forces in retaliation for Americans’ burning of the city of York (now Toronto) in 1813, and remains the only time since the 1780s that the American capital has been occupied under a foreign flag.

Because it’s August and there’s no new local news, we thought we’d take a moment to turn back the clock and look at a big day in our city’s history. On August 25, 1814, the War of 1812 took a turn in the newly-minted nation’s capital, when troops set fire to Washington, D.C. The war started when the British Empire restricted U.S. trade with France (who Britain was also at odds with). Being the…