USA: The Star-Spangled Banner (Part 1)

**Dominic Sandbrook** (0:01)
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**Tom Holland** (0:06)
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**Tom Holland** (4:20)
So that was a song originally entitled The Defense of Fort McHenry, and it was written by a guy called Francis Scott Key in September, 1814
And it is probably better known as The Star Spangled Banner. And Dominic, what better way to kick off our series marking the 2026 football, or if you're in America, soccer World Cup, held in the United States in Mexico and Canada, which starts this Thursday and it will be ending in just over a month in New York. So Dominic, what we've done with this series, we have picked six competing nations in this World Cup, haven't we? Whose national anthems have a fascinating backstory, tell us all kinds of things about the countries that they serve as a national anthem, and all kinds of fabulous characters in them and lots of great myths to be busted.

**Dominic Sandbrook** (5:15)
We love busting a myth.

**Tom Holland** (5:17)
We love busting a myth. So on Thursday, we are going to be looking at England and Scotland. And then next week, we're going to be looking at Germany and the Netherlands. And in our third week, we're going to be looking at Brazil. And then last of all, South Africa.
But fittingly, because it is the host nation, because of its prominence in sport, because it is famously the most difficult anthem actually to sing, we are going to be starting with The Star Spangled Banner.

**Dominic Sandbrook** (5:45)
Yes. So hello, everybody.
A very recognizable anthem. It's been reinterpreted very controversially at times by Jose Feliciano, by Jimi Hendrix, by Whitney Houston, and by Borat Sagdyev. It played a central role, of course, in the Black Lives Matter protests in the late 2010s and in 2020 So it was during the playing of The Star Spangled Banner that the San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick first took the knee in 2016 And we'll be talking about that a bit later. There have actually always been people who don't like this anthem. Americans who don't like it. And there have been lots of alternative versions as Americans have tried to adapt it to their own political causes. So again, we'll talk about that a little bit later. But first of all, I think it would be fun to start off with the historical moment that the anthem is all about. So this is the British attack on Fort McHenry, hooray, which is just off Baltimore in Maryland in September 1814