The star spangled banner song history
Though his celebrated anthem proclaimed the United States “the land of the free,” Key was in fact a slaveholder from an old Maryland plantation family, and as a U.S.
He composed other verses over the course of his life, but none received anywhere close to the recognition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” After contracting pleurisy, Key died in 1843 at the age of 63. He served as a member of the “Kitchen Cabinet” of President Andrew Jackson and in 1833 was appointed as a U.S. Key’s Complicated LegacyĪfter the war of 1812, Key continued his thriving law career. Key himself had even used the tune before, as accompaniment for verses he wrote in 1805 commemorating American naval victories in the Barbary War. In one famous case, defenders of the embattled second president, John Adams, used the tune for a song called “Adams and Liberty.” The Anacreontic Song, as it was known, had a track record of popularity in the United States by 1814. How the Battle of Stalingrad Marked a Turning Point in WWII sailors into the Royal Navy and standing in the way of westward expansion led the United States to declare war in June 1812.
Simmering anger at Britain for interfering in American trade, impressing U.S. soldiers-who were under bombardment from British naval forces during the War of 1812-raise a large American flag over Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland. The anthem’s history began the morning of September 14, 1814, when an attorney and amateur poet named Francis Scott Key watched U.S. By the time the song officially became the country’s anthem in 1931, it had been one of America’s most popular patriotic tunes for more than a century. “The Star-Spangled Banner” is the national anthem of the United States.