During the War of 1812, a young American attorney named Francis Scott Key went to Baltimore to try to secure the release of an American in the hands of the British Navy. He was successful, but had the misfortune to arrive at the British Fleet just before they began the bombardment of Fort McHenry. Detained by the British, he witnessed the battle from a British ship. On his way back to shore in the morning, he wrote a poem based on his feelings when he saw that the
U.S. flag was still flying above Fort McHenry indicating the fort had withstood the British assault and was still under American control.
Under the title Defense of Fort M'Henry, the poem was circulated as a handbill and later published by a Baltimore newspaper. His words were later set to the tune of a popular English song To Anacreon in Heaven and was adopted by the American Army and Navy as a national anthem. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed an executive order making The Star-Spangled Banner the official national anthem of the United States of America. An act of Congress confirmed Wilson's order in 1931.
Recently, an effort was made to promote a version of the U.S. national anthem in Spanish. I have no real problem with that concept (the Canadian anthem is sung in both English and French), but the Spanish version is not a translation of the original. Someone wrote different lyrics. That's my objection to the Spanish version. Writing different lyrics does not help Spanish speakers understand Americans as those who are promoting it claim.
How can it when the history and meaning of the original are lost?
O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O 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 thro' 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 on the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner: O, 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 wash'd 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.
O thus be it ever when free-men shall stand
Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd 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!
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