National Anthem Day and other facts you may not know about the Star Spangled Banner
Mar 09, 2022
National Anthem Day is celebrated on March 3rd every year, but why? On March 3, 1931, President Herbert Hoover signed a law officially making the Star Spangled Banner our country’s national anthem. This was 15 years after President Woodrow Wilson declared that the song should be played during military celebrations. In honor of National Anthem Day, here are some more facts you may not know about the history of our country’s national anthem.
The Star Spangled Banner was written during the War of 1812, over 100 years before it officially became our national anthem. Francis Scott Key, a well-known poet and lawyer at the time, was a prisoner in the War of 1812. Detained on a British ship near Fort McHenry, he watched the British attack Fort Henry on the night of September 13, 1814. Upon daybreak, he noticed the American Flag, The Star Spangled Banner, still flying and the fort still standing despite the assault. This is truly amazing, since Fort McHenry was bombarded with almost 2,000 bombs, rockets, and shells that night. These events inspired Francis Scott Key to pen the poem we all know and love today.
The tradition of playing the Star Spangled Banner became popular at the 1918 World Series, 13 years before it officially became our country’s national anthem. Although it did not become our national anthem until the year 1931, the tradition of playing this song at the beginning of sporting events got its start long before then. The first documented time the Star Spangled Banner was played at the beginning of a sporting event was during a Civil War era baseball game in 1862. During World War I and World War II, this tradition became an increasingly popular way to show patriotism.
The Star Spangled Banner actually has four verses. Most people are only familiar with one, the one we sing at the beginning of sporting events, military events, and other patriotic events. Francis Scott Key started writing this great work while he was a prisoner of war. In fact, these famous words were first written on an envelope.
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,
‘Tis the star-spangled banner – O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto – “In God is our trust,”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.