Walking about the snowy, mostly empty streets of Washington, D.C. today I was thinking about The Star-Spangled Banner, which was declared the National Anthem today in 1931, and about its author Francis Scott Key, a devout Episcopalian.
Interesting that it became the National Anthem during the depths of the Great Depression, and in time for World War II. The great film Tora, Tora, Tora shows a U.S. Navy band performing an early morning rendition of The Star Spangled Banner aboard a battleship in Pearl Harbor just as diving Japanese bombers begin to attack, prompting the band conductor to wave his wand more frantically.
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