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Brits turned to Baltimore, firing on the harbor’s Fort McHenry. Francis Scott Key, a lawyer from Georgetown, found himself on a ship in Baltimore’s harbor as the War of 1812 raged around him.
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At dawn on Sept. 14, the American flag still flew over the fort; the British were in retreat. Key’s poem about what he saw, which he set to an earlier tune by John Stafford Smith, came to be known as “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
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The “Star-Spangled Banner” did quickly gain popularity, however, and military bands during the Civil War and World War I used it as a de facto anthem
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The “Star-Spangled Banner” did quickly gain popularity, however, and military bands during the Civil War and World War I used it as a de facto anthem
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The effort to acquire a national anthem gained speed following World War I
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The magazine reprinted an anti-“Banner” letter from a man who found it “hurtful to every ideal which Americans cherish” in its violence (particularly toward Britain, an ally). One of the main concerns with naming “The Star-Spangled Banner” the anthem was that, with its octave-and-a-half range, it was just too hard to sing.
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The U.S. Navy Band performed the song for the House Judiciary Committee. Two sopranos sang all its four verses to prove that its words were not difficult, that its pitch was not too high.
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President Hoover signed the bill into law, and the U.S. had an anthem for the first time
