It almost passed me by without my realization so I apologize for both of us, unless that was you trying to flag me down yesterday on the Internet to talk about the Bicentennial of the Star Spangled Banner. Yeah, didn't think so.
Two hundred years ago yesterday, capping in a defiant manner their successful defense of the Harbor of Baltimore, Maryland from the same British attacks that had burned the White House in Washington D. C. less than two weeks earlier, the garrison at Fort McHenry lowered their storm flag that had flown all night through the bombardment and raised the Great Garrison Flag the sight of which inspired Francis Scott Key to pen "Defense of Fort M'Henry" describing the battle and detailing the celebration that followed in the morning.
Since even then, we were not a nation known for reciting poetry aloud and/or in unison, it was set to music, a real-tapper popularly known as "To Anacreon in Heaven" after which the men and women of the United States of America took it on the road where it played quite successfully since those early days of the Republic through to the present.
You can find the flag that inspired Key at the National Museum of American History in our nation's capital. I remember seeing it when my father would take us to Washington D. C., and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the song were still available on iTunes.
-bill kenny
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