Image “The American Flag” by Shardayyy from Flickr.com

The American national anthem is called the “The Star-Spangled Banner” and like most national anthems there is a story behind it.

The words for this song come from a poem written during the War of 1812 in the United States. That’s right, the American national anthem was not created at the same time as the country (in 1776) and it didn’t officially become the national anthem until much, much later. The poem, that became America’s national anthem, was called “Defense of Fort M’Henry.” It was written by a man named Francis Scott Key, after he witnessed an attack on Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.  Eventually the poem had to be put to music if it was to become an anthem, so a popular tune from Great Britain was used as the music for this song.

“The Star-Spangled Banner” was first used as an anthem by the American Navy in 1889, but didn’t officially become the national anthem of the United States of America until 1931! Before 1931, other songs were used as de facto American national anthems at public events. Today, Americans only know one national anthem and it is The Star Spangled banner.  I have written out the lyrics of this song below. Although I have included the whole song for you below, usually only the first seven lines of this song are sung as the anthem.

You can also listen to this song and see the words of the anthem here:

The Star Spangled Banner

Oh, 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 rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there:
Oh, say! does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

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 fully glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh, 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 washed out their foul footsteps’ 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

Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved 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.