Our Star-Spangled Banner

Three weeks after British troops burned down the White House and the U.S. Capitol in 1814, the British Navy took aim at Fort McHenry, forty miles north of Washington, D.C.

35-year-old American lawyer, Francis Scott Key, was in Baltimore to rescue an elderly friend, Dr. William Beanes who had been captured by the British in late August. Because the British were preparing to bomb Fort McHenry, Key's ship was not permitted to leave the harbor.

At daybreak on September 13th, for 25 hours, the British began pummeling Fort McHenry with 1500 bombs. As the sun rose the next day, Francis Scott Key pulled an envelope out of his pocket and began jotting down notes on what he was witnessing...

O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,

⁠What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,

⁠O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?

And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;

O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,

⁠O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Learn more about America's Star-Spangled Banner here.