You're watching FreeSchool! The Star-Spangled Banner is the national anthem of the United States of America. This familiar song has a long and interesting history dating back more than 200 years to September of 1814. The new United States of America, barely more than 20 years old, was at war once more with Great Britain, in a war called simply the War of 1812. War had been raging for more than a year and a half when a young American lawyer named Francis Scott Key was sent to a British ship, the HMS Minden, to negotiate the release of some American prisoners.
The negotiations took a long time, and because Key had heard the British planning an attack on Baltimore, Maryland, they wouldn't let him go until after the battle. On September 13, 1814, the British attacked Fort McHenry. as Francis Scott Key watched anxiously from a ship a few miles away.
The battle was so fierce that Key was worried that the British would win. As the sun set, the sky turned red, giving a last glimpse of the American flag as the battle continued into the darkness. The fight raged on all through the rainy night, but once the rocket's red glare and bombs bursting in air stopped, Francis Scott Key could no longer see which flag was flying above the fort. It wasn't until morning, as the early light of dawn revealed the aftermath, that he could see that the American flag still flew, meaning that they had not been defeated. Key was so inspired that the next day he wrote a poem on the back of a letter he had in his pocket, and on September 16th, he was released in Baltimore, where he completed his poem.
It was originally titled, Defense of Fort Mahenry, and was printed in newspapers from Georgia to New Hampshire. The poem was set to music, and various versions became popular, but it wasn't until 1889 that the song was first adopted for official use by the Navy. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson ordered that the Star-Spangled Banner should be played at military occasions. and President Herbert Hoover signed the bill that officially adopted it as the national anthem on March 4, 1931. Although the song has four verses, most Americans today are only familiar with the first verse of the Star-Spangled Banner, which is sung everywhere from baseball games to firework displays and 4th of July celebrations. I hope you enjoyed learning about the Star-Spangled Banner.
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