Voted most likely ...

... to be overlooked in the great scheme of historical commemoration, 2012 (coming right up, here -- a matter of a few hours) begins the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812. For a good summary of this clumsy little sideshow of the Napoleonic wars, see John Elting's Amateurs to Arms!. For an even more abbreviated and less readable summary, look it up in Wikipedia. And for a completely abbreviated list of 1812's main events, see below.

Date	Event	Approx Location	Notes
6/18/1812	Declaration of War	38 52 N 77 2 W	Pres. Madison was honked off about the Brits stopping our trade and hijacking seamen ("Hello, Sailor!")
7/12/1812	US invades Ontario, from Detroit	42 19 N 82 02 W	As noted below, this didn't work out all that well for us.
7/17/1812	Surrender of Ft. Mackinac	45 51 N 84 37 W	The Brits in Ontario got the memo about war first and staged a preemptive strike on Mackinac Island.
8/16/1812	Surrender of Detroit	42 19 N 82 02 W	The US invasion force in Ontario turned around, retreated to Detroit, and then surrendered. Most of the Northwest Territory -- certainly Michigan and the western Great Lakes -- were now back in British hands.
8/19/1812	USS Constitution vs HMS Guerriere	41 42 N 55 33 W	The first of a series of disheartening defeats suffered by the Royal Navy at the hands of US heavy frigates
10/13/1812	Queenston Heights	43 9 N 79 3 W	Another US attempt to invade Canada went very wrong, with a thorough defeat at Queenston Heights, near Niagara.
10/25/1812	USS United States vs HMS Macedonian	30 39 N 27 11 W	Another of our heavy frigates trounces a British ship of nominally (but not actually) equal force.
12/29/1812	USS Constitution vs HMS Java	13 21 S 31 21 W	Just barely in 1812, a third British Frigate is administered a whuppin' by the fledgling US Navy. The Constitution, of course, is the famous Old Ironsides (42 22 N 71 3 W).