FAITH LAPIDUS: The first settlers came to the area in the middle of the sixteen hundreds. The settlement was named Baltimore Town in honor of Lord Baltimore of England.
Maryland was one of the thirteen British colonies that declared their independence and formed the United States in seventeen seventy-six. Baltimore served as the nation's capital for two months during the American Revolution.
America and Britain went to war again in eighteen twelve. American ships sailed from Baltimore Harbor into the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean and attacked British ships.
As a result of these attacks, Baltimore became a target. In September of eighteen fourteen, British ships attacked Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor.
The attack lasted all night. An American lawyer and poet named Francis Scott Key was on a ship in the harbor. He wrote a poem about the huge American flag that he saw flying over Fort McHenry. He wondered, would it still be there after the battle was over? It was.
Key's poem, set to music, became popular. Then, many years later, on March third, nineteen thirty-one, "The Star-Spangled Banner" officially became America's national anthem.
The earliest known copy of the poem in Francis Scott Key's own handwriting is housed at the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore. But for the next three months it will be shown at Fort McHenry. The national monument is celebrating the opening of a new, fifteen-million-dollar visitors center. The celebration also marks the eightieth anniversary of Congress' declaring "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the national anthem.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25