Dan Snow's History Hit - When the Brits Burnt the Capitol, with Peter Snow

Episode Date: January 12, 2021

In 1814 a British expeditionary force landed in Maryland, marched on Washington, brushed aside an American army and stormed into the US capital. The British looted and burnt the Capitol, then moved on to the White House, ate President Madison's dinner and then torched the White House. Even members of the British force described it as 'barbaric.' Two hundred years later Peter Snow, Dan's dad, wrote an account of the raid. He seemed like the obvious guy to talk to as The Capitol was once again attacked this year. 

Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was a master satirist who cloaked a sharp political edge beneath his absurdist wit. Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth explores the ideas of the man who foresaw the dangers of the digital age and our failing politics with astounding clarity. Hear the recordings that inspired a generation of futurists, entrepreneurs and politicians. Get Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's history hit. Flames licked up the side of the Capitol. Looters rampaged through the corridor.

It was an assault on the very heart of American democracy. I am, of course, talking about the attack in the late summer of 1814 when a British expeditionary force landed in Maryland, marched on Washington, D.C., and stormed the capital of the republic. They sacked and burned the Capitol building and the White House. It was the last time that a foreign army has seized the capital of the United States of America. Now, I want to talk about this for obvious reasons. It's been talked about a lot recently, given the insurrection that took place at the Capitol last week. Very hard and strange to get those words out. And I got a great guest to talk about the events of 1814 when Britain burnt the Capitol.

To mark the 20th anniversary he wrote a best-selling and widely acclaimed book on the raid. And he is, shall we say, available because he's my dad. He's my dad, Peter Snow. He's available because he's sitting at home, locked down, waiting for the glorious vaccine that has entered his arm a few weeks ago to do its business until he can get back out into the cut and thrust, get hugging, get kissing, because he, my friends, is going to be protected from COVID. Thank you to all the doctors, all the scientists, all the healthcare professionals who made that happen. If you wish to listen to more of these episodes of the podcast without the ads, or if you wish to watch what the Times newspaper the other day called the Netflix of history,

please get over to History Hit TV. If you use the code POD1, P-O-D-1, you get your first month free. So you're totally free of charge. And your second month, which is one pound, one euro, one dollar, whatever currency you're paying in. So go and check it out. Two months for next to nothing. You can watch a lot of history content in that time,

particularly if you're locked out. So please head over there, everybody, and do that. But in the meantime, enjoy the very special Peter Snow, my dad, talking about the destruction of the Capitol. Hi, Dad, how are you doing? Fine, Dan. Sort of shielding, but pretty good. How quickly did your thoughts go to the storming of Washington when you were watching cable news nonstop a couple of nights ago?

I cast myself back immediately to the minds of those extraordinary Brits who crossed the Atlantic to bash up the Americans because they didn't like them very much. And they didn't like American democracy the way it was running. And so we have extraordinary parallels here. The War of 1812 is one that people often forget about. Just quickly, what was the situation in terms of the balance of power that how the war had been going by the time the Brits headed towards the Potomac? Britain was an enormous empire with a great navy running the seas as if

they owned the whole lot. And the Americans found this extremely tiresome. Britain was interfering with American trade. And the Americans declared war on Britain. The Americans 30 years into independence declared war on Britain, their former colonial rulers. And they said, to hell with these Brits. Let's get them out of the sea, certainly out of American seas. The Brits responded by obviously fighting the Americans and finding it very tough because the Brits were fighting Napoleon at the time. It was the Napoleonic War. And the Americans tried to invade Canada without success.

So the war roared and stormed. And the Brits decided in 1814, after two years of this war of 1812, that they were going to go and give the Americans a good lesson. And that's why they went to Washington. Was it always designed as a sort of raid on the enemy capital? Or was this an attempt at conquest? What was the British plan? The British Parliament told the commander in chief, a chap called Alexander Cochrane, Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane, they said, go and give the Americans a good drubbing. We're fighting Napoleon. Let's stop them fighting us at sea and stop them invading Canada. It's extremely tough. Go and give them a good drubbing. We're fighting the French, not the Americans.

And so Cochrane went off with his navy. and there was one Dan key man in the British fleet, Admiral George Coburn, Rear Admiral George Coburn, one rank down from Alexander Cochrane. And Coburn said, as the ships were piling across the Atlantic, Coburn said, I think the best thing to do is to go and hit the heart of American democracy, Washington, the capital of the United States. And so the Brits said, oh, my goodness, you think that's wise? And Admiral Cochran, the boss man, said, we'll think about that. Anyway, they arrived in the Chesapeake Bay

area, about 50 miles south of Washington. They anchored their ships, and George Coburn said, right, come on, let's go to Washington and sack the place. Well, one or two Brits, even Republicans, thought this might be today, thought this might be a little bit over the top. But nevertheless, George Coburn clearly had the bit between his teeth. He was a very inspiring man, a wonderful chap. The Brits all admired him pretty much,

and they started heading for Washington. So they had a lot of latitude as they crossed the Atlantic. They had a huge amount of latitude, could they? They could have sort of blockaded New York or Boston, but it was them that chose to go to the Virginia, Maryland area, was it? Yes, I mean, that was the point. They could have gone. They could have gone and tried to rescue the poor Canadians

who were having a terrible time fighting off the Americans, quite successfully, actually. And they could have gone and tried to rescue the poor Canadians who were having a terrible time fighting off the Americans, quite successfully, actually. And they could have gone down to New Orleans and cut off the Americans from the south and west. But they decided, and it was mainly George Coburn's idea, to go straight for the American capital. And so they went to Chesapeake Bay, Chesapeake Bay, which really is just outside Washington. The Potomac River runs into Chesapeake Bay. And so this is obviously a great example of British amphibious capability,

that they need warships to carry troops there and they need to land the troops. Chesapeake Bay is no easy place to do pilotage, isn't it, Dad? The water is occasionally extremely shallow. It was the most extraordinary operation, not unlike the one you wrote so well about in Quebec. It was the most 50 or so years earlier. It was a very, very bold operation.

They had to go into the Chesapeake Bay. They then had to find another little river called the Patuxent River, which creeps up quite near to Washington, not as big as the Potomac, a smaller river with lots of shallows, which creeps up quite near to Washington, not as big as the Potomac, a smaller river with lots of shallows, which creeps up quite near to Washington. It goes to a place called Nottingham, unbelievably. They anchored their ships in the Patuxent River, and then they went in small boats against the stream, which is coming down towards them.

They rowed in small boats, 4,000 troops down, 4,000 of these British troops, 4,000 troops down, 4,000 of these British troops, heavily laden with 60 rounds of musket ball ammunition, with supplies for two or three days, blankets. They rowed their way up the river and they got off the little rowing boats in a little town which is called Benedict. A small town, still there today, looks just the same. It's a very small, unaffecting-looking place, I mean, very modest little village. And they got off there and they rested for a while, and then they started marching up 40 miles up the land in Maryland today, it's called Maryland, the state of Maryland, up towards Washington.

Tell me, Dad, what about, because the Americans in the War of 1812 had some, unpleasantly from the British point of view, unpleasantly effective heavy frigates, didn't they? Was there no attempt to interdict this amphibious force at sea before they got near the nation's capital? None. The Brits arrived, it was extraordinary. The American Defence Department was incredibly badly run

by a man called Armstrong, and the commander-in-chief was a man called Brigadier Winder. They were incredibly badly run by a man called Armstrong, and the commander-in-chief was a man called Brigadier Winder. They were incredibly badly run. The president himself was no great war leader. He was a chap called Madison, a wonderful man who was a great statesman, a great thinker, a great drafter of the American Constitution, James Madison. But he must have not expected the British to turn up actually at the center of American power. But no, there was no attempt to stop the Brits arriving. There were one or two attempts to hit the British once they arrived.

There was a team of little barges run by a wonderful chap called Joshua Barney, an American naval officer. But there was nothing they could do. The huge British fleet, some 40 ships, really huge ships like the Tomahawks, which had fought at Trafalgar. I mean, it was terribly unlikely that the Americans would have been able to stop this fleet arriving. It was a great surprise for the Americans. It all happened terribly quickly. It was the 17th of August, 1814,

and by the 24th of August, the British army had marched to Washington. So they're marching up this peninsula. Tell me what happens after they leave Benedict. And when do they first run into meaningful opposition then? Well, not really until they got within a few miles of Washington. They marched up the peninsula. This was the occasion when George Coburn really had to drive them forward. Cochrane, roughly when they were halfway up the peninsula,

Cochrane said, look, I think you've done enough. Go back to the ships. This is the admiral who was in the overall admiral, the task force commander, Alexander Cochrane. He said, look, I think you've turned back, chaps. We've done your stuff. You've frightened the Americans. You've given them a drubbing.

Let's just go home. George Coburn said, no way are we going to go home. Let's just ignore what the admiral says. George Coburn said, no way are we going to go home. Let's just ignore what the admiral says. George Coburn was leading the force forward in company with a very fine British general called Major General Robert Ross, who was the army commander. You may well ask what George Coburn, a naval commander, was doing with the army, but there he was. He was a tremendous driver. He was absolutely determined to go and do what he could to the Americans in Washington. He wanted to go and give them a good raid, a good drubbing, as they all called it. And so Coburn drove them forward. They went up. They marched in four days. They went about 50 miles, 45 miles up to the

river that goes east of the Potomac and the east side of Washington. They crossed the river, and there in front of them was the American army drawn up in a great, great panic and great haste by the very incompetent commander, General Winder. He drew them up down at the place called Bladensburg. He drew them up just about five miles northeast of Washington. He drew them up in three lines. And oddly, he drew them up in three lines that were a long way from each other so that they couldn't support each other. Don't forget, in those days, they had muskets that hung out really, really accurately, only about 100 meters. So you needed to have all your forces very close together. But he put them all very far apart. And so the battle started, 24th of August, the battle started, and it was a catastrophe for the Americans.

I should ask, are these American, are they regulars? Are they militia, National Guard, part-time soldiers? What's the quality of these troops that are facing these British veterans of the Napoleonic Wars? Yes, you make the point very well. That is the point about it, Dan, that the Brits had these four regiments afoot who had been right through the Napoleonic Wars. They were professional, grizzled soldiers who they'd had all the experience they needed to fight any foe anywhere in the world. The Americans hadn't fought a war for 30 or 40 years since the American War of Independence against the Brits in the 1980s. And so the Americans were desperately unprepared. They were also desperately untrained.

They had mainly volunteers. They had quite a few volunteers, but they also had people drafted. And so the American soldiers were poorly trained on the whole. They were one or two regiments of Marines who were very well trained, but on the whole, they were poorly trained. They were very enthusiastic. They were determined to defend their country, no question about that. But they didn't really have the experience to face up to these four regiments, some 4,000 men, British experienced veteran soldiers, who just went straight through them at the Battle of Bladensburg. How did the battle play out? Was it a classic infantry engagement like you got on the continent in Europe at that time? How did the British route the Americans?

Well, the difference was that the Americans were drawn up in three lines. Instead of putting them as they did in the Continental Wars, instead of putting them all in one great long line with maybe two or three deep facing the advancing foe, the Americans put them in three lines, one line behind the other, about half a mile apart apart so they couldn't really support each other and the Brits just advanced in that way that the British did in those days step by step, all sticking shoulder by shoulder all looking at each other and taking strength from each other's determined faces and they just marched forward

the Americans saw the Brits advancing and one line after another simply collapsed and ran it was an embarrassing The Americans saw the Brits advancing and one line after another simply collapsed and ran. It was an embarrassing walkover for the Brits. And so there was just for a moment at the very end of the battle, a moment when the British were losing quite a few men and the Americans were fighting bravely, but they folded in the end and they ran. The third line particularly, you can imagine them exchanging volleys of musketry at very close range, can you? Volleys of musketry at very close range. But what really, I think, frightened the Americans was the discipline and the determination of the Brits just to walk straight at a musket fire coming straight at them.

weren't prepared to fight the British hand to hand and to have the final clash that you have to have in an infantry battle in those days with bare-legged straw. And so they ran for it. You listened to Dan Snow's history hit. We got my dad back on. He's talking about an attack on Washington. Not the recent one. More after this. Land a Viking longship on island shores. Scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai

warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was a master satirist who cloaked a sharp political edge beneath his absurdist wit. Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth explores the ideas of the man who foresaw the dangers of the digital age and our failing politics with astounding clarity. Hear the recordings that inspired a generation of futurists, entrepreneurs and politicians.

of futurists, entrepreneurs and politicians. Get Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. And that left the nation's capital effectively undefended? The nation's capital was then entirely undefended. We now got the evening of the 24th of August, 1814. The Americans have run for it off the battlefield of Bladensberg. And the British have five miles to walk down, to march down to Washington, which is a very small village at those times, about 8,000 people living there. It was a very small place, but there, about 8,000 people living there. It was a very small place,

but there were two grand buildings, really grand buildings. One was the Capitol, not quite the same as it is today, but the same walls. And the other was the White House, which was almost exactly the same building as we have today.

And these two beautiful buildings were standing there in the middle of almost nothing, it was all marsh and very open country. And there were lots of wooden houses. There were lots of other houses. But it was a village with these two great buildings. And so the British marched down there and they saw it sitting there in front of them.

And they thought, right, what are we going to do? Coburn had absolutely clear idea what they were going to do. They were going to go down and they were going to burn the Capitol and they were going to burn the White House and they were going to burn the State Department and one or two other buildings as well that they found in their track. And so they arrived around about 7 p.m. They arrived at the Capitol and I've got a wonderful quote for you from George Coburn who said, right, chaps, let's attack this place.

We're going to go and burn it to the ground. He bashed on the doors of the building. There was nobody trying to guard the building. In they went. He went to the Speaker's chair and he shouted out to his troops, he said, shall this harbour of Yankee democracy be burned? All for it will say aye. There was a great loud shout of assent from all the British troops. And Coburn in the lead,

very much in the lead, then burnt the place down. The British troops burnt the place down. And it was, there's a wonderful picture of it, which it stood there. Its walls were still standing, which you can see it completely burnt out. And terrifyingly as well, they burnt out the Library of Congress, some marvellous old books in Congress. They burnt out the Library of Congress, they burnt the books. Coburn himself wandered into the office. He was by the president, Madison, in Congress, helped himself to one memento. It was a slim book, beautifully bound with the words the President of the United States stamped in guilt on the cover. And it was President Madison's personal copy

of the government's receipts and payments for the year. And he walked off, they took it home. It was a pretty barbaric thing to do in this cradle of democracy. There were some Brits who were so appalled at what they saw being done that they actually said so at the time. Not quite to George Coburn, who would, of course, wrap them over the knuckles, but one or two others who were equally appalled by what they saw happening in the Capitol. Sam Whitbread, a British MP, heard about this when the news reached home, and he said Britain has done what even the Goths failed to do at Rome.

I mean, he was stunned by what the Brits had done to what he saw as the cradle of American democracy. Huge echoes of what we see happening, what we saw happening last week in the American Congress. In the same building, it was an extraordinary parallel. One of the soldiers who was with Ross and Coburn, it was a chap called Harry Smith, a very fine British officer called Captain Harry Smith, who fought his way right through the peninsula. He thought this was quite barbaric. He said, you know, what we did in Washington was barbaric. Republican Republicans who are so appalled at what their president has done in encouraging him to go and raid the Capitol that they say that he was doing something that was an affront to American democracy. And so you have these Brits, even these Brits, the enemy of the Americans, saying the same sort of thing that some Republicans felt they had to say about what Trump was doing.

It's an extraordinary, extraordinary parallel. Anyway, the Capitol was burned. The Brits then, with Coburn cheering them on, went to the White House. They found the door open. They went in and they found that Madison and his wife had left, of course. The White House was empty. Dolly Madison, who was the very brave wife, a very feisty wife of James Madison, James Madison, a rather retiring man, a great thinker, a great father of the American Constitution,

had left with his wife. But the wife said to James Madison, I'm going to make sure that we take one or two vital things out of the White House before I go. She was very brave. She stayed on. She knew the British were there. She knew the Battle of Bladensburg was going on. But she decided to take off the wall a very fine painting of George Washington,

which was sitting on the wall. She took it off the wall, and she cleared off her personal belongings and one or two other things that they thought were very precious about the White House, and they took them across the Potomac into Virginia. Anyway, when they left, they'd prepared supper, dinner, for all the Americans. They confidently expected that the Battle of Bladensburg would be won by the Americans, and so they prepared dinner for all their generals and all their staff. It was sitting on the table.

The meat was turning in the spits the wine was on the side table it was all waiting, the table was laid and in they walked and Madison took one look around and he said my goodness this is marvellous, let's give a toast to James Madison for giving us a nice supper he raised his glass and said

here's to James Madison and American democracy and everybody sat down and they tucked into this marvelous meal and they enjoyed it. They had a drink or two from Madison's wine and then they, George Coburn said, right,

chairs on the table, let's burn the place down. The British then set light to the White House. It burned. And again, the walls remain standing. But the thing was completely burnt out. The the the walls, the wooden walls, the the wooden furniture, everything was absolutely destroyed. And there's a fine picture again of the White House, which shows it completely burnt out. And even today, you can see on the doors of the White House, one or two places, you can see the black burn marks that

they've left, I suppose the Americans have left them there. They haven't whitewashed over them. They've left those burn marks on the White House to be a sign that, you know, this is what happened in 1814. Don't let that ever happen again. And so that was the White House and the British then pulled back. The damage was stopped, staunch, wasn't it, by a terrible storm, a downpour. I remember reading your book. It seemed quite fortuitous. The Americans were in a sense very lucky because there was a huge rainstorm which showered the capital, Washington, on the night of the 24th of August, 1814. And that possibly stopped the whole White House burning to the ground and the Capitol, too. And the two buildings were left with their walls still there, but completely burnt out.

The windows completely burnt out and destroyed and black marks everywhere on the two buildings, which still remain today. And after that, what, the Brits just retired, did they? They got back on their ships and went away? Yes, the Brits then, Robert Ross, the general commanding, who was a very brave man and was very enthusiastic. George Coburn was leading

them on and pushing them and inspiring them. But Robert Ross didn't disagree with Coburn. He was a bit hesitant initially, but like Cochran, the overall commander. But they, all three of them, were thrilled with what happened in Washington. They thought they'd done the right thing. They thought they'd given the Americans a good lasting. Except, as I mentioned to you, one or two Brits who felt that they had done the wrong thing and that they'd done something barbaric to American democracy. But on the whole, the feeling was that they'd done the right thing. And then they pulled out.

They went very quickly back to the ships. James Madison and his wife were running around in Virginia hoping to escape the Brits. There was no need for them to run around or to take refuge because the Brits very quickly said, right, we've done enough, let's go. There were only 4,000 soldiers, don't forget, and the Americans had up to, goodness knows, hundreds of thousands of soldiers available if they wanted them. The trouble with the Americans was they took time to get their army together, and they were very much surprised by the speed of the British arrival

in Washington. So they couldn't do much about it. Off went the Brits down the river, and then they thought, what do we do next? And what they did next was, again, an extraordinary part of the story. That's when the siege of Baltimore comes in, the Star-Spangled Banner, isn't it? There were some Brits who thought, right, I think we've done enough here.

We've given the Americans quite a shock. We've destroyed the Capitol. We've destroyed the White House. Let's go home. Well, let's go down and start bashing up New Orleans or something. But Coburn again said, no, come on, chaps. And if they could knock that down as well, that would be a tremendous success. So with Coburn very much cheerleading, and Cochrane, all the others very much agreeing with him, Robert Ross led the army up,

the navy and the army up to Baltimore, about 20 miles north of Washington, and they landed the troops on the peninsula that runs east of Baltimore. And they went to North Point Peninsula, it's called. And they landed there. And then they started marching up towards Baltimore. Now, the problem with Baltimore was that there was a in order to be sure that they would be safe attacking Baltimore itself, they had to destroy a fort at the entrance to Baltimore Harbor called

Fort McHenry. Fort McHenry, a fine fort right at the end of Baltimore Harbor. And they had to shell it. They had to fire rockets and flares and mortar bombs and things at this fort in order to suppress it so they could feel safe about going into Baltimore itself. And also the Navy could then pass through the mouth into Baltimore Harbor and also help to bombard Baltimore City. So up they went. They got off the ships. They started marching towards Baltimore. The Navy came up and started shelling this great fort, Fort McHenry.

And they arrived at a little stream halfway up the North Point Peninsula, and they had a battle with the Americans. And just before that battle, a terrible thing happened. Robert Ross, the commander of the British force, was shot dead. So Robert Ross is very brave, more than Irishman, who had led the army very successfully at the Battle of Bladensburg and defeated the Americans in Washington, was shot dead. at the Battle of Bladensburg and defeated the Americans in Washington, were shot dead. So Robert Ross was dead, and Colonel Arthur Brooke then took over the army fighting the Americans. And he managed to win the small battle of North Point

and lead the troops on up towards Baltimore. They took positions outside Baltimore, waiting for Fort McHenry to be suppressed, to be defeated, to surrender. Now, the Americans had a wonderful chap, a wonderful general called Sam Smith. He was a local senator. He was a very brave man. He was an experienced soldier, quite unlike William Winder in Washington and the terrible Armstrong, the war secretary, and James Madison, who was no great army commander.

The man at Baltimore was in charge. General Sam Smith was a man of quite different caliber. And he had been a great veteran of the American War of Independence against the Brits some 30 years earlier. And he said, we are going to defend the city. What happened in Washington will not happen here. And he was right. It didn't happen there because Fort McHenry succeeded in surviving the incredible bombardment from the British fleet that went on all the night of the 12th and 13th of September, 1814, some three weeks after the attack on

Washington. And the flag at Fort McHenry was the famous star-spangled banner that flew over the fort. It was specially designed to inspire the fort's commanders and soldiers to stand against whatever was thrown against them. It flew over the fort. The Brits were waiting patiently for the fort to fall so they could attack Baltimore properly. But it didn't. It survived the night. And the British decided to turn around and not risk what they had left in the way of soldiers. Quite a lot of brave, brave men. But nevertheless, they've been reduced in number and they didn't feel they could go on to Baltimore because this fort had survived. and they didn't feel they could go on to Baltimore because this fort had survived. This incredible night when Fort McHenry was bombarded by the British fleet, and when it managed to survive the horrible bombardment and thus be able to defend Baltimore against any British attack, which they decided not to go ahead with, as I've just said, this young lad, a young lawyer called Francis Scott Key, was watching from a ship nearby to see what would happen to the fort. And he thought there's no way it can survive.

I mean, this is simply this is a terrifying bombardment by some 30 or 40 British ships firing mortar bombs, rockets, flares, all sorts of horrible things that were flying at the fort. And this garrison was holding on. And as the dawn came up, he thought there's no way that flag will still be flying. And he peered through the fog of dawn on the 13th of September, 1814, and he looked across at the fort and he thought he could, yes,

he could see the flag was still flying. And so he took a piece of paper from his pocket and a pencil. He was quite a young poet. He was not only a lawyer, he was also an American poet. And he wrote down the words on his bit of paper. O say can you see by the dawn's early light what so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? early light, what so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming. O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? Wonderful poem. And he put it back in his pocket and he went off to the pub later on after Baltimore had survived the British attack and the fort had won its spurs by surviving the terrible naval attack by the British ships. And some of his friends in the pub said,

that's a nice little poem. And he said, yeah, yeah, it is, isn't it? I'm rather proud of it. And they said, look, why don't we put it to words, put it to music. And they found the, they thought, well, we ought to get a nice melody. And they chose a British drinking song,

which they'd been singing away in the pubs for a long time. And they put the words of this to the British drinking song. And, of course, it was the American National Anthem. It wasn't adopted, Dan, as the American National Anthem until the 1930s. They had all sorts of other great songs they sang in the meantime. But it wasn't until the 1930s that the Americans adopted Francis Scott Key's poem, became a song, and then this drinking song, as it was in the pubs earlier on, became the American National Anthem.

And so we Brits, many people don't know this, we Brits inspired the American National Anthem. Well, let's hope that this attack on the Capitol also inspires some creative flowering that will be remembered years hence. Dad, can I just finish up by asking you, how long have you been reporting on American politics? When did you first go to America to report on American politics? Oh, goodness me, back in the 1960s, I think, 1960s and 70s. All sorts of things happening in America in those days. In all the decades that you watched American politics, did you ever think you'd see the things that you've seen in the last few years,

let alone the last week? Well, I was absolutely staggered by what happened in the last week. I mean, the only time, apart from the British raid on Washington in August, September 1814, the only time that Washington's been attacked was by the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda in September 2001. And then it was attacked from the air, of course, and it survived. Of course, that the White House itself wasn't attacked. The British attack was in 1814. There's no other attack on the White House in all the 200 or 300 years of American existence until the al-Qaeda attack. And then, of course, it's the Americans themselves who attack it in 2020, 2021.

Extraordinary. In all of your experience of all these other administrations, how much of an outlierity of his administration, which I mean, many of us thought absurd from day one. Others gradually began to agree. It's been climaxed with something that simply decided, I think, virtually everybody that it's absurd. And it frankly probably has to stop. It is the most extraordinary.

The word is aberration, I think, in American politics. And America, which is genuinely has rightly claimed to be the heart of Western democracy. I mean, we're pretty proud of our own democracy, but the Americans have done pretty well. And it has some wonderful presidents. And then this incredible four years and this absolutely beyond belief climax in the last week when the American president himself, the man who actually decided he was going to encourage his followers who believed like him that he had won the election to go and attack the Capitol, it was the most extraordinary thing. And I mean, he may not have dreamed that they would go and ransack it like they did, but he must have realized that these followers that he had talked to that morning were liable to go and do something terrible to the Capitol because it was largely undefended. And in they went, and they went and sat in the

Speaker's chair, and they went and occupied offices and tore up newspaper and broke windows. It was the most, I find myself completely stunned by what I saw. Well, thank you very much, Dad, for coming on and talking about your brilliant book and also a little bit about your experience visiting Washington Washington over the years keep well dad I'll see you soon now that you've both had your vaccinations okay old chap hi everyone thanks for reaching the end of this podcast. Most of you are probably asleep, so I'm talking to your snoring forms, but anyone who's awake, it would be great if you could do me a quick favour.

Head over to wherever you get your podcasts and rate it five stars, and then leave a nice glowing review. It makes a huge difference, for some reason, to how these podcasts do. Madness, I know, but them's the rules. Then we go further up the charts, more people listen to us and everything will be awesome. So thank you so much. Now sleep well.

Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was a master satirist who cloaked a sharp political edge beneath his absurdist wit. Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth explores the ideas of the man who foresaw the dangers of the digital age and our failing politics with astounding clarity.

Hear the recordings that inspired a generation of futurists, entrepreneurs and politicians. Get Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold.