When did the Star Spangled Banner become America's national anthem?

Question

And who made the decision? Please include links.

Answer 1

This patriotic song, whose words were written by Francis Scott Key on Sept. 14, 1814, during the War of 1812 with Great Britain, was adopted by Congress as the U.S. national anthem in 1931. For many years before Congress made this choice, the song was popular and regulations for military bands required that it be played for ceremonies.

Though Key wrote the words during the British bombardment of Fort McHenry at Baltimore, the melody was an English tune well known in America by the 1790s. It was the music for a poem, “To Anacreon in Heaven,” written about 1780 as the official song of a British social and musical organization, the Anacreontic Society. In fact, Key had used the music in 1805 to accompany another poem he wrote to honor Commodore Stephen Decatur.

Key was a well known 34-year-old Washington, D.C., lawyer-poet. The British had captured Washington and taken William Beanes, a physician, prisoner. They were holding him aboard ship in their fleet off the Baltimore shore. Friends of Beanes persuaded Key to negotiate his release. Key went out to the British fleet and succeeded in gaining Beanes’ release but, because the British planned to attack Baltimore at that time, both were detained.

During the night of Sept. 13-14, Key watched the bombardment of Baltimore from the deck of a British ship. Although rain obscured the fort during the night, at daybreak he could see the American flag still flying from Fort McHenry. The fort still stood after the British had fired some 1,800 bombs, rockets and shells at it, about 400 of them landing inside. Four defenders were killed and 24 wounded. Key drafted the words of a poem on an envelope. The American detainees were sent ashore, the British fleet withdrew, and Key finished the poem and made a good copy of it in a Baltimore hotel the next day.

According to some accounts, Key showed the poem to relatives of his wife in Baltimore and these people had it printed immediately and distributed throughout the city on a handbill, entitled “The Defense of Fort McHenry.” Within a couple of weeks, Baltimore newspapers published the poem, it gained instant popularity and was renamed “The Star-Spangled Banner.” An actor sang it to the popular British tune at a public performance in Baltimore.

Only with the start of the Civil War did “The Star-Spangled Banner” become a nationally popular song. Both Union and Confederate forces rallied to it. During World War I, a drive began in Congress to make it the official anthem of America’s armed forces. There were other contenders for the title, including “America the Beautiful” and “Yankee Doodle.” Maryland legislators and citizens were among the most active groups and individuals who pressed to get Francis Scott Key’s words and accompanying English tune ratified into law as the country’s first national anthem. That finally happened with passage of P.L. 823 and President Herbert Hoover’s signature on March 3, 1931.

The anthem has four verses, each ending with the line, “O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Answer 2

"The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States, with lyrics written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key. Key, a 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet, wrote them as a poem after seeing the bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland, by British ships in Chesapeake Bay during the War of 1812.

The poem, titled "Defense of Fort McHenry," was set to the tune of the popular British drinking song "The Anacreontic Song", more commonly known by its first line, "To Anacreon in Heaven," and became a well-known American patriotic song. With a range of one and a half octaves, it is known for being difficult to sing. It was recognized for official use by the Navy in 1889 and the President in 1916, and was made the national anthem by a Congressional resolution on 3 March 1931 (46 Stat. 1508, codified at 36 USC §301). Although the song has four stanzas, only the first is commonly sung today, with the fourth ("O thus be it ever when free men shall stand ...") added on more formal occasions.

Answer 3

It started out as a poem, written by Francis Scott Keyes. I believe he was captured by the British during the War of 1812 and was so moved to still see the flag the morning after a battle that he jotted down the words. This part I'm not exactly sure of, I believe it didn't become the national anthem until after the Civil War, maybe even later.

Answer 4

On September 3, 1814, Key and John S. Skinner, an American prisoner-exchange agent, set sail from Baltimore aboard the sloop HMS Minden flying a flag of truce on a mission approved by U.S. President James Madison. Their objective was to secure the release of Dr. William Beanes, the elderly and popular town physician of Upper Marlboro, a friend of Key’s who had been captured in his home. Beanes was accused of aiding in the arrest of British soldiers. Key and Skinner boarded the British flagship, HMS Tonnant, on 7 September and spoke with Major General Robert Ross and Admiral Alexander Cochrane over dinner, while they discussed war plans. At first, Ross and Cochrane refused to release Beanes, but relented after Key and Skinner showed them letters written by wounded British prisoners praising Beanes and other Americans for their kind treatment.

Because Key and Skinner had heard details of the plans for the attack on Baltimore, they were held captive until after the battle, first aboard HMS Surprise, and later back on HMS Minden. After the bombardment, certain British gunboats attempted to slip past the fort and effect a landing in a cove to the west of it, but they were turned away by fire from nearby Fort Covington, the city's last line of defense. During the rainy night, Key had witnessed the bombardment and observed that the fort’s smaller "storm flag" continued to fly, but once the shelling had stopped, he would not know how the battle had turned out until dawn. By then, the storm flag had been lowered, and the larger flag had been raised.

Key was inspired by the American victory and the sight of the large American flag flying triumphantly above the fort. This flag, with fifteen stars and fifteen stripes, came to be known as the Star Spangled Banner Flag and is today on display in the National Museum of American History, a treasure of the Smithsonian Institution. It was restored in 1914 by Amelia Fowler, and again in 1998 as part of an ongoing conservation program.

Aboard the ship the next day, Key wrote a poem on the back of a letter he had kept in his pocket. At twilight on 16 September, he and Skinner were released in Baltimore. He finished the poem at the Indian Queen Hotel, where he was staying, and he entitled it "Defence of Fort McHenry."

Key gave the poem to his brother-in-law, Judge Joseph H. Nicholson. Nicholson saw that the words fit the popular melody "To Anacreon in Heaven", an old British drinking song from the mid-1760s, composed in London by John Stafford Smith. Nicholson took the poem to a printer in Baltimore, who anonymously printed broadside copies of it—the song’s first known printing—on 17 September; of these, two known copies survive.

On 20 September, both the Baltimore Patriot and The American printed the song, with the note "Tune: Anacreon in Heaven". The song quickly became popular, with seventeen newspapers from Georgia to New Hampshire printing it. Soon after, Thomas Carr of the Carr Music Store in Baltimore published the words and music together under the title "The Star-Spangled Banner", although it was originally called "Defence of Fort McHenry." The song’s popularity increased, and its first public performance took place in October, when Baltimore actor Ferdinand Durang sang it at Captain McCauley’s tavern.

The song gained popularity throughout the nineteenth century and bands played it during public events, such as July 4 celebrations. On 27 July 1889, Secretary of the Navy Benjamin F. Tracy signed General Order #374, making "The Star-Spangled Banner" the official tune to be played at the raising of the flag.

In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson ordered that "The Star-Spangled Banner" be played at military and other appropriate occasions. Although the playing of the song two years later during the seventh-inning stretch of the 1918 World Series is often noted as the first instance that the Anthem was played at a baseball game, evidence shows that the "Star-Spangled Banner" was performed as early as 1897 at Opening Day ceremonies in Philadelphia and then more regularly at the Polo Grounds in New York City beginning in 1898. Today, the anthem is performed before the beginning of all NBA, NHL,MLB and NFL games.

On 3 November 1929, Robert Ripley drew a panel in his syndicated cartoon, Ripley's Believe it or Not!, saying "Believe It or Not, America has no national anthem." In 1931, John Philip Sousa published his opinion in favor, stating that "it is the spirit of the music that inspires" as much as it is Key’s "soul-stirring" words. By a law signed on 3 March 1931 by President Herbert Hoover, "The Star-Spangled Banner" was adopted as the national anthem of the United States.

Answer 5

Although it had been played often by the military, Congress did not elect it to be the national amthem until 1931.

Answer 6

See Kevin's answer! What else can be said that isn't sarcastic, ignorant or utterly false.

Answer 7

wow cant compete with kev..hey kevin great answer