On September 14, 1814 Francis Scott Key penned "The Star Spangled Banner" as he watched the Battle of Baltimore at Fort McHenry unfold. This poem later became our national anthem.
Key was a prominent lawyer, son to a prominent Maryland judge. He traveled to Fort McHenry to negotiate the release of an American prisoner, Dr. William Beanes, from the British. The British released Beanes into Francis Scott Key and Col. John Skinner's custody, but because the three men were now privy to the British plan to attack America they were not permitted to leave their sloop. Key, Skinner, and Beanes had no course of action but to sit and watch the surprise British attack on America. But as Key so famously wrote when the smoke cleared, "the flag was still there."
And so the American National Anthem was born from a little known battle in history on this day in 1814.
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