--- title: British Embassy Apologizes For Tweet About Burning Down White House description: The British Embassy apologized for tweeting a joke about burning down the White House in honor of the 200th anniversary canonical: https://time.com/3173861/british-embassy-tweet-200th-anniversary-burning-of-white-house/ author: Laura Stampler article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-25T15:04:44.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:12:43.560Z og:title: The British Embassy apologized for tweeting about burning down the White House og:description: Umm… jk? og:url: https://time.com/3173861/british-embassy-tweet-200th-anniversary-burning-of-white-house/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The British Embassy apologized for tweeting about burning down the White House twitter:description: Umm… jk? twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # The British Embassy Apologized For Tweeting About Burning Down the White House by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Aug 25, 2014 3:04 PM UTC by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Aug 25, 2014 3:04 PM UTC Two hundred years ago Sunday, August, 24, when America and the United Kingdom were enmeshed in the War of 1812, some Brits burned the White House to the ground. So how did the British Embassy in America decide to celebrate this bicentennial — which [some historians attribute as the turning point of the war](http://time.com/3154675/white-house-burning-war-1812/)? By joking about burning it down again, of course. > [](https://twitter.com/ukinusa/status/503668849750056960) Shortly after realizing that putting sparklers on a White House cake was perhaps in poor taste, The Embassy’s Twitter account apologized for its tone deaf tweet: > [](https://twitter.com/UKinUSA/status/503703891238993920) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3173861/british-embassy-tweet-200th-anniversary-burning-of-white-house/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3173861/british-embassy-tweet-200th-anniversary-burning-of-white-house/"},"headline":"The British Embassy Apologized For Tweeting About Burning Down the White House","datePublished":"2014-08-25T15:04:44.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:12:43.560Z","description":"Umm… jk?","url":"https://time.com/3173861/british-embassy-tweet-200th-anniversary-burning-of-white-house/","keywords":["Newsfeed","viral","twitter","Embassy","British"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Laura Stampler","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3173861/british-embassy-tweet-200th-anniversary-burning-of-white-house/","name":"The British Embassy Apologized For Tweeting About Burning Down the White House"}}]}] ```