Two hundred years ago today, in the Flemish city of Ghent, two combatants sat down across from each other to sign a treaty ending two years of war and forging an unlikely alliance that would weather two World Wars and change the course of world history. Though Andrew Jackson famously defeated the British at New Orleans in January of 1815 and the treaty wouldn't be ratified by the US Congress until February 18, 1915, the Prince Regent's signature officially put hostilities to an end and restored the pre-war borders of both countries. Ironic that Britain and the United States would be involved in another war a century later, this time fighting side-by-side in the trenches. Time makes strange bedfellows.
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