“Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light / What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming? / Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, / O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?” These lyrics, written by Francis Scott Key in 1814, became the opening words to our National Anthem by Congressional resolution on March 3, 1931. Learn what they mean, and how they came to be written with these Star-Spangled Banner web picks.
