Burning of Washington Capitol dome to match the diameter of 86 ft. With the reconstruction of the public buildings in Washington, the value of land in the area increased dramatically, paving the way for the expansion of the city that developed in the years leading up to the American Civil War. Burning of Washington The Burning of Washington was a British invasion of Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, during the War of 1812. On August 24, 1814, after defeating the Americans at the Battle of Bladensburg, a British force led by Major General Robert Ross burned down buildings including the
Capital punishment in the United Kingdom those territories where it had up until recently been legal. The last executions in an overseas territory, and indeed the last on British soil, took place in Bermuda in 1977, when two men, Larry Tacklyn and Erskine Burrows, were hanged for the 1973 murder of the territory's then Governor Sir Richard Sharples. In 1991, the British government extended an Order in Council to its Caribbean territories the effect of which was to abolish capital punishment for murder: Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos Islands. The British government was unable to extend the