While the land of the free is the home of the brave. Holmes wrote this extra verse, long after Francis Scott Key wrote the original. The U.S. was in the grip of civil war, and unlike the familiar ...

This Fourth of July, here’s an American story most of us were never taught. After we had brutally enslaved black people for almost 200 years, some escaped and joined the British army to fight ...

When we became allies with them in WWII, the verse drops out of use in “The Star-Spangled Banner.” O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand There is some contention over the word usage here.

While little known and rarely sung, the third verse of Key’s lyrics includes the following divisive phrase: Revisiting the “The Star-Spangled Banner” and its complex history around white ...

On this day in 1931, President Herbert Hoover signed into law legislation making “The Star-Spangled Banner” the nation’s official national anthem. Francis Scott Key (1779-1843) composed the ...

The Star-Spangled Banner is the national anthem of the United States ... However, the anthem wasn’t adopted until 87 years ago, on 3 March 1931. In the 19th century, ‘Hail, Columbia’ was used at ...

Ask students to view the following group of three videos to hear Mark Clague talk about the meaning of the four verses, terms found within The Star-Spangled Banner, and song writing in early ...

Red Sox owner Harry Frazee had the song played before the game Calvin Coolidge signed a bill to make the "Star-Spangled Banner" the country's national anthem on March 3, 1931. Here are five ...

Many Americans have no idea there are actually four official verses to the "Star-Spangled Banner" — and even fewer know about a little-known, unofficial fifth verse, written a half century later ...