biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1779–1843)
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| biography:
| Lawyer and poet, the writer of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, born in Frederick Co, Maryland, USA. During the British bombardment of Fort McHenry, Baltimore (1814), which he witnessed from a British man-of-war, he wrote a poem about the lone US flag seen flying over the fort as dawn broke. It was published as ‘The Defence of Fort McHenry’, and later set to a tune by the English composer, John Stafford Smith (‘To Anacreon in Heaven’). In 1931 it was adopted as the US national anthem. |
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