The Star-Spangled Banner: Story of Our National Anthem

In September of 1814, the United States was a relatively young country engaged in a war with the most powerful nation of the time, Great Britain. A British fleet launched a devastating overnight bombardment of the American fort that defended Baltimore harbor. As the sun rose the next morning, a young lawyer named Francis Scott Key who had observed the battle saw that the American flag was still flying. Inspired, he wrote a poem that would later be set to music as "The Star-Spangled Banner"—...