who first called the U>S> flag "the star spangled banner"?

Answer 1

Who first called the US flag "the star spangled banner"?

I don't know if we can say for sure the Key was the first to ever use this expression, though it was certainly his best-known song that popularized it.

But even for Key the expression goes back earlier than 1814. In fact, it is a slight variation on the expression 'star spangled flag' which Key had used some nine years before in another song that he drew on heavily for ideas and phrases when writing "The Star-Spangled Banner"

Key wrote that song -- When the Warrior Returns" -- in 1805, for a banquet in Georgetown, MD held in honor of war hero Stephen Decatur and others on their return from victory over the Barbary Pirates of Tripoli. To the same tune (that of a popular British drinking song "To Anacreon of Heaven") as that he used for "The Star Spangled Banner" and which was used for perhaps 85 other American songs (esp. patriotic hymns) in the period from 1790-1820

One of the verses includes the following section:

And pale beamed the Crescent, its splendor obscured
By the light of the Star Spangled flag of our nation.
Where each radiant star gleamed a meteor of war,
And the turbaned heads bowed to its terrible glare,

What is interesting is how Key portrays the conflict as between the Muslim flag of Tripoli (with its crescent, now obscured) and the American flag, to which the enemy now bowed in honor. Thus the inotion of a 'star-spangled (flag/banner)' is rooted in this concrete imagry of a crescent moon being obscured by the light of the stars.

Look here for the full lyrics:.
http://www.potw.org/archive/potw340.html

For details on the background of the Tripolitan War and this earlier song:
http://www.uiportal.net/print.php?plugin:content.136
http://www.triplopia.org/inside.cfm?ct=682

There are also a number of excellent books out know on this "First Barbary War" (probably because publishers snatched up books on the subject of "America's first war with Islamic terrorists" after 9/11).

For example, you could try the book by Robert Allison, *The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim World, 1776-1815*, which includes a discussion of Key's song. (Note that the very title of the book is based on the lines in the song describing the conflict 'between the flags')

A number of other excellent choices are listed here:
http://www.amazon.com/Books-Pirates-Islam-American-History/lm/2HB41ZCVT3SH6/ref=cm_lmt_srch_f_2_rsrsrs0/103-2468951-7814235

Answer 2

That is from a poem written by Francis Scott Key during the War of 1812. The poem was actually written in 1814 (the war lasted longer than one year) during the bombardment of a U.S. fort by British ships in Baltimore, Maryland. It didn't officially become the US National Anthem until 1931.

Answer 3

I swear I already answered this one.... must have been another post....

Francis Scott Key penned the name in a poem about the British bombardment of of Ft McHenry during the war of 1812.

Answer 4

I think it was someone who participated (on the US side) in the 1812 War, and who wrote the US Anthem.