Thread by @FAB87F

The Origins of the US National Anthem - "The Star Spangled Banner".

On September 14, 1814, U.S. soldiers at Baltimore’s Fort McHenry raised a huge American flag to celebrate the fort holding out against the British bombardment.

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The sight of those “broad stripes and bright stars” inspired Francis Scott Key to write a song that eventually became the United States national anthem.

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Key was inspired by the sight of a lone U.S. flag still flying over Fort McHenry at daybreak, as reflected in the now-famous words of the “Star-Spangled Banner”: “And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.”

Key’s words gave new significance to a national symbol and started a tradition through which generations of Americans have invested the flag with their own meanings and memories.
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The tune that Key put his words to was an existing one, written by an English composer and was the anthem of a London Gentleman’s Club called the Anacreontic Society.
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The British composer’s identity was a subject of speculation until the 20th-century discovery of a manuscript that identified him as John Stafford Smith, a Gloucester native born in March 1750.
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The son of a cathedral organist, Smith, as a young man, joined the Chapel Royal in London, where he received instruction from the composer William Boyce.
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The Anacreontic Society’s anthem was “To Anacreon in Heaven”, and the music was composed by Smith.

The song’s lyrics were written by fellow Anacreontic Ralph Tomlinson, who served as the society’s president.
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It’s unknown exactly when the Anacreontic song reached America, but soon enough Smith’s composition became the score for many different songs in the States.
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Though the federal Copyright Act of 1790 protected authors of books, maps, and charts, it did not include musical compositions. In that era, a musical piece could be used infinite times in infinite ways.
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When Key wrote his Star-Spangled lyrics after the 1814 Battle of Baltimore, To Anacreon in Heaven still was wildly popular in the US, where “every one who could sing seemed to be singing it”, according to the 1873 edition of The American Historical Record.
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Key, a lawyer and amateur poet, had long enjoyed the Anacreontic song, and had used Smith’s composition a decade earlier as the music for a different poem.
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By the time of the US civil war, the fusion of Smith’s music with Key’s lyrics had arguably become America’s most beloved song.
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In 1889, The Star-Spangled Banner was adopted for official use by the US Navy, and in 1916, President Woodrow Wilson ordered that the song be played during official military events.
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But it wasn’t until 1931 that The Star-Spangled Banner was made the US national anthem by an Act of Congress. The music for a club tune had become the official song for the world’s most powerful country.
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