In 1916 – 102 years after Key first published its words – President Woodrow Wilson signed an executive order decreeing it America’s national anthem.” He ordered it played at all major public events. While “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” – lyrics adapted to another English song, “God Save the Queen” – served as America’s first national anthem, military bands and civic groups played the “Stars-Spangled Banner” with increasing frequency. Key himself wrote three other sets of lyrics to that melody, according to the Constitution Center. And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust. When lawyer and poet Francis Scott Key wrote the lyrics to The Star-Spangled Banner in 1814, he was trying to heal a divided nation and encourage all Americans to rise above. The words fit music he knew well: an old English tune titled “To Anacreon in Heaven.” In fact, nearly 80 different lyrics used that tune by 1820. The overwhelming majority of living Americans cannot remember a time when the Star-Spangled Banner” was not our national anthem.įrancis Scott Key watched the British pound Maryland’s Fort McHenry during the War of 1812 and then wrote about that moment in history in a poem originally titled “The Defence of Fort McHenry.” A newspaper in Baltimore published the work on September 14, 1814, and he later changed the name to “The Star-Spangled Banner.” An illustration of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.
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