UK embassy sorry for 'burning White House' tweet

The British embassy in Washington has issued an apology for tweeting a photo to ‘commemorate’ the burning of the White House in 1814.

The UK embassy posted a picture of a White House cake surrounded by sparklers on its official Twitter account to mark the torching of the US presidential residence by British forces 200 years ago during the "War of 1812" with the United States, according to the BBC.

It was the first ever incident of a foreign power capturing and occupying Washington since the American War of Independence.

The post was retweeted more than 4,000 times as most were shocked by the strange commemoration.

Several wrote that it was ‘in poor taste’.

"Apologies for earlier Tweet," the embassy said two hours later.
"We meant to mark an event in history & celebrate our strong friendship today.”

A link to a blog entry by Deputy Head of Mission Patrick Davies titled 'Torch of Friendship' on Huffingtonpost was also attached to the apology.