In August 1814, British troops marched into the American capital and set fire to the Capitol and the White House. This episode unpacks how a foreign army came to burn Washington during the War of 1812, the myths that grew up around that night, and the violent storm that cut the occupation short.

We look at British motives after Napoleon’s defeat and the earlier American burning of York, the rout known as the Bladensburg Races, and how gunfire on a flag of truce changed General Robert Ross’s plans. We also explore how the Library of Congress fueled the Capitol fire, the British officers who ate the White House dinner, and the push in Congress to abandon the ruined city.

• Paul Jennings’s account correcting the Dolley Madison portrait legend
• Admiral Cockburn’s stolen ledger and his war on the letter C at the National Intelligencer
• How William Thornton shamed British troops into sparing the Patent Office
• The tornado on Constitution Avenue and the deadly Greenleaf’s Point explosion
• The Old Brick Capitol and how rebuilding cemented Washington’s permanence