Aussie history for Aussiecon4

Yesterday, Scalzi wrote briefly about 1812 in his blog. I had a vision of Napoleon and brambles. I wasn't the only one, judging from some of the comments. I keep forgetting that the US doesn't think of itself as being part of a side skirmish in the Napoleonic Wars. Australia quite often thinks of itself as a solution to someone else's prison problem partly due to those wars, partly due to the North American unrest, but mostly due to a harsh penal system. '1812' to us is mostly a piece of ...