Sometimes it's hard not to admire that crazy guy who parks it down on the corner with his megaphone and his messages of impending doom. We've all seen these people, and while it's easy to write them off as one card short of a full deck, at least they have a cause, right?

The War of 1812 started out with a cause: to get the British off our backs and out of our business. No matter how much the Federalists disliked it, the war was on.

So, in 1812, the United States declared war against Great Britain. For the previous 20 years, Britain had claimed the right to intercept American ships on the high seas, seize their cargoes, and search their crews for British navy deserters. At war with France since 1793, Britain defended these actions as necessary wartime measures. Indignant Americans called them violations of their rights as a neutral and sovereign nation. In many ways, this was a "second war of independence." 

It kind of felt like the British hadn't taken us seriously the first time and were still treating us like their property.

And the United States had become a heckuva lot stronger since the Revolutionary War. With a real army and navy, the United States was eyeing the Colony That Got Away: Canada. In particular, congressional representatives in western regions wanted an excuse to expand into the Niagara and Great Lakes region of Canada. They also wanted to cut off British support to indigenous nations that resisted westward expansion.

This seems like a pretty solid cause for war and one that patriots could really get behind. However, the War of 1812 is often called a "forgotten war" because, well, do you know anything about it? Most Americans can't remember what it was about, and it sort of just fizzled into uselessness by the end. 

Speaking of the end, it didn't end in great victory or great loss. It didn't add new territories to the United States. It just kind of ended in a draw.

The war ended in 1815 with a treaty that was little more than a cease-fire. None of the major issues that had caused the war were addressed. Nevertheless, the war had profound effects on American politics and national identity. And it generated a cast of new American heroes, including two future presidents.

For many Americans today, the War of 1812 is all but unknown. 

• Maybe you'll remember that it gave us our national anthem. (Oh, Whitney Houston didn't write that one?)
• Or you'll recall that it ended with an unnecessary but victorious battle at New Orleans.

But beyond this historical trivia, the War of 1812 has left little to the popular memory.

Even though the War of 1812 didn't result in a major military victory, and our northern brothers are still Canadian and not American, there were some interesting battles that took place in the war as well as some real shows of heroism and some individuals who stood out as real Tough Mudders.

The war was a shot in the arm for many Americans, and it taught us a lot about ourselves as a nation—our strengths, our weaknesses, and our need for a new White House. The outcome of it all was a huge swell in patriotism. We may not have "won" in the strictest—or any—sense of the word, but we held our ground. We proved again that we could and should be taken seriously as a nation. 

But as we mentioned, amid the high-fives and feelings of patriotism, we realized that there were a few things that needed our attention. For instance, we probably needed to put some more focus on maintaining an army and a navy in times of peace. Turns out war can happen at any time and it's pretty useful to have a strong military in place. 

Who knew?

We also discovered that this whole "moving out west" thing wasn't a dying fad and that we were going to need some focus on internal improvements to support all these settlers. Roads are very useful things. Thousands of people continued to pour west, and America needed to make sure they were taken care of in the same way as the more developed parts of the nation.

Speaking of those developed parts of the nation, the North discovered through the war that they were pretty dog-gone good manufacturers. Where they had relied on British manufacturing for so long, the trade restrictions between the British and Americans had forced New England to break into the manufacturing game. And by golly, they weren't half bad. This growth in manufacturing and factories led to population growth and technological advancement, and the cycle just continued from there. 

Perhaps the craziest thing to come out of this war was the role reversal of Federalists and Republicans. Republicans had always been those freedom-loving, government-hating Mavericks, but all of a sudden, they were seeing the need for more government involvement in the economy, the military, western expansion, and more.