Who wrote national anthem of USA ?

Want to know who wrote national anthem of USA ? In other words who wrote national anthem of america ?

Read on to find out who wrote it !

The American anthem was written by Francis Scott Key, who wrote the lyrics in 1814.

Scott fought in the War with the United Kingdom of 1812 and was imprisoned on a ship where he witnessed the British bombardment of McHenry. After this disaster, Scott saw the American flag flying high, which inspired him to write the poem that would later become the country’s anthem.

The melody is not original. It was taken from the popular song To Anacreon in Heaven by John Stafford Smith, which was popularized by the U.S. Army and Navy and, with Scott Key’s lyrics, took shape.

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Who is Francis Scott Key ?

Francis Scott Key was born in Maryland on August 1, 1779.

When he was ten years old, his parents sent him to high school in Annapolis.

He studied law while working at his uncle’s law firm. In 1805, he moved to Georgetown, a suburb of Washington.

He served briefly in the Georgetown Field Artillery in 1813. In 1814 was the year he was appointed United States District Attorney.

On September 14, 1814, during the bombardment of Fort McHenry, a fortress near the city of Baltimore, Maryland, he wrote the anthem of the United States, known as “The Star-Spangled Banner” (La Bandera Sembrada de Estrellas).

At that time, the United States was fighting the War of 1812 against Great Britain. When the British fleet subjected Fort McHenry to a fierce nighttime bombardment, the young Francis Scott Key, who had been ordered by his government to board an English warship to arrange a prisoner exchange, was inspired when he saw, at dawn, his nation’s flag still flying atop the fort, and wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner”.

In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson ordered that the military and naval bands of the United States play this anthem, and on March 3 of that year, the Union Congress designated “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the national anthem.

Key had owned slaves since 1800, during which time abolitionists ridiculed his words, claiming that the United States was more like the “land of the free and the home of the oppressed.”

As a district attorney, he suppressed abolitionists and did not support the immediate end of slavery. He was also a leader of the American Colonization Society which sent freed slaves to Africa.

He freed some of his slaves in the 1830s, paying a former slave as foreman on his farm. He publicly criticized slavery and gave free legal representation to some slaves seeking freedom, but he also represented runaway slave owners.

Key’s father, John Ross Key, was a lawyer, commissioned officer in the Continental Army, and judge of English descent. His mother Ann Phoebe Dagworthy Charlton was born (February 6, 1756 – 1830), to Arthur Charlton, a publican and his wife, Eleanor Harrison of Frederick in the Maryland Colony.

Key grew up on his family’s Terra Rubra plantation in Frederick County, Maryland (now Carroll County).

He graduated from St. John’s College, Annapolis, Maryland, in 1796 and read law with his uncle Philip Barton Key, who was loyal to the British Crown during the Revolutionary War.

Married to Maria Tayloe Lloyd in 1802, he had 11 children.

Francis Scott Key died on January 11, 1843 in Baltimore, Maryland, and was buried in the cement of Mt. Olivet in Frederick.

The Star Spangled Banner by Francis Scott Key

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 thru 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 full 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 !