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Pens the lyrics after witnessing the British defeat at Baltimore's Fort McHenry.
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When the U.S. turned 140 in 1916, it marked the occasion by finally giving a small measure of official status to The Star-Spangled Banner, one of a score of patriotic songs then in circulation. American president Woodrow Wilson decreed that the song would be sung at all military ceremonies. It was the first step in a laboured political process that would see the song become the U.S.'s national anthem --
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Passes an act naming "The Star-Spangled Banner " the national anthem.
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Anderson sang the national anthem at the inauguration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1957
