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<H2 style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 10px; MARGIN: 0px"><A
title="The Star-Spangled Banner Turns 200"
style='href: "http://blogs.jwpepper.com/?p=5250"'><FONT face=Georgia><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt" color=#000000><FONT
style="TEXT-DECORATION: none"><FONT style="FONT-VARIANT: small-caps">The
Star-Spangled Banner Turns 200</FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></A></H2>
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<P class=date style="PADDING-TOP: 10px; MARGIN: -20px 0px 10px"><FONT
color=#333333 face=Verdana><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 6.8pt">Posted By
</FONT></FONT><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 6.8pt"><A title="Posts by Brendan Lyons"
style='href: "http://blogs.jwpepper.com/?author=47"' rel=author><FONT
color=#000000><FONT style="TEXT-DECORATION: none" face=Verdana>Brendan
Lyons</FONT></FONT></A></FONT><FONT face=Verdana><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 6.8pt"
color=#333333> on February 20, 2014 </FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="PADDING-TOP: 10px; MARGIN: 0px"><IMG title="The Star-Spangled Banner"
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<P style="PADDING-TOP: 10px; MARGIN: 0px"><FONT face=Verdana><FONT
color=#333333>We know the story of how <EM>The Star-Spangled Banner </EM>was
written. Francis Scott Key, lawyer and amateur poet, sat aboard a British
warship in Baltimore Harbor watching the bombardment of Fort McHenry when the
lyrics came to him. He had gone to the ship to discuss a prisoner
exchange, but was forced to stay when the battle commenced. From his
vantage on the ship, he watched the start of the bombardment, the “rockets’ red
glare” illuminating the scene. When dawn finally broke, the Stars and
Stripes still flew over the fort, signaling that the Americans had held
on.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="PADDING-TOP: 10px; MARGIN: 0px"><FONT face=Verdana><FONT
color=#333333>The original poem was entitled <EM>The Defense of Fort
McHenry,</EM> but Key gave it to a friend who set it to the tune of <EM>The
Anacreontic Song,</EM> a popular piece at the time. It would be another
hundred years before <EM>The Star-Spangled Banner </EM>would become the national
anthem, a decision finalized by President Herbert Hoover in 1931. Before
that, it was used in a number of military capacities and during events such as
the World Series.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="PADDING-TOP: 10px; MARGIN: 0px"><FONT face=Verdana><FONT
color=#333333>This year, we celebrate the bicentennial of <EM>The Star-Spangled
Banner </EM>and what it has meant for our nation since it was written.
Until 1931, the United States actually did not have a national anthem.
Several different songs were played and sung as patriotic pieces, but none were
official anthems.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="PADDING-TOP: 10px; MARGIN: 0px"><FONT face=Verdana><FONT
color=#333333>The song has been criticized in the past for glorifying conflict
over the other great accomplishments this nation has achieved, but I would argue
that those people miss the deeper nature our anthem has come to possess.
It is not just about the military struggle the song details, but also the
countless other struggles our nation has endured. Internal strife
threatened to tear our nation in two, but we somehow mended the scars of war
that separated us. Racial segregation insulted the very idea of our
freedom, but we are to this day working to right those wrongs, in spite of our
differences. The vast majority of us are the descendants of immigrants who
braved famine, storm, and misery to embrace the promise that was and is
America.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="PADDING-TOP: 10px; MARGIN: 0px"><FONT face=Verdana><FONT
color=#333333>Those are the battles that the lyrics of <EM>The Star-Spangled
Banner </EM>have come to represent. We are, all of us, a product of the
struggle against tyranny that our anthem describes, be it the tyranny of
imperialist power, the tyranny of ignorance, the tyranny of indifference, and so
much more. In the hearts of people around the nation and the world, there
is the fear that the beauty that is freedom may not last the night; but if
we strive to be leaders in the fight for the rights of all mankind, we can make
sure that by the dawn’s early light the spirit of liberty might continue to
wave.</FONT></FONT></P></DIV></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>