What was the name of the poem that later became the Star Spangled Banner"?

Question

defence of fort mhenry is the answer

Answer 1

The Defense of Fort McHenry - worked for radio trivia.
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Answer 2

Defense of Fort McHenry, by Francis Scott Key

Answer 3

Defense of Fort McHenry

Answer 4

Defense of Fort McHenry

Answer 5

The lyrics come from a poem written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key. Key, a 35-year-old amateur poet, wrote "Defence of Fort McHenry" after seeing the bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland by British ships in Chesapeake Bay during the War of 1812.

Why did you ask if you knew?

Answer 6

Defense of Fort McHenry works for radio trivia.

Answer 7

What a lot of people do NOT know about "The Star-Spangled Banner" was that it was, in a sense, Key's SECOND try.

In 1805, Key wrote a song -- "When the Warrior Returns" -- 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. He set THAT song (another rooted in a battle-description) to the currently popular British drinking song "To Anacreon of Heaven". In fact, this was not at all a novel idea. In the period from 1790-1820 this tune was used for perhaps 85 other American songs, ESPECIALLY patriotic hymns.

So when Key began to draft a set of lyrics to describe his experience in Baltimore in 1814, he quickly decided to draw on some of the ideas and language of the earlier song, not to mention writing it to fit the same tune.

Perhaps the most important verse of the 1805 song includes the following:

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. . .

Thus Key depicts the conflict as between the Muslim flag of Tripoli (with its crescent, now obscured) and the 'star-spangled' American flag -- standing for a new, rising power, and an altogether different system overcoming and surpassing the old. Rather an interesting perspective on American values and destiny, perhaps all the more so in light of recent conflicts.

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 now on this "First Barbary War" (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')

Answer 8

Defense of Fort McHenry works for the radio trivia's.

Answer 9

EXTRAORDINARY TRIVIA

What was the name of the poem that later became the Star Spangled Banner"?

DEFENSE OF FORT MCHENRY is the us99 trivia answer.

Answer 10

Defense of Fort M'Henry