It’s a song every American has heard countless times, but how much do you really know about our national anthem?

From The San Francisco Call. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Full text is unavailable for this digitized archive article. Subscribers may view the ...

“The Star Spangled Banner ... Francis Scott Key may have immortalized this unspoken sentiment in his poem as he watched his country’s spangled banner fly over the bombarded Fort McHenry ...

Re “Remove ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ as national anthem ... is the basis for the Anthem is “racist”. Francis Scott Key was a slave owner, therefore we should not honor his poem.

Like so many famous songs of yore, "The Star-Spangled Banner" started as a poem, called “The Defence of Fort McHenry.” It was written by Francis Scott Key in 1814 during the War of 1812.