The Star Spangled Banner and the American Flag on DVD

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The Star Spangled Banner and the American Flag. Both are key components of patriotic Americans and both are glorified in these short films showing performances of the Star Spangled banner and a moving story about our Flag.

A bit of history on the Star Spangled Banner. “The Star-Spangled Banner” is the national anthem of the United States of America, with lyrics written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key. Key, a 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet, wrote them as a poem after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland, by British ships in Chesapeake Bay during the War of 1812.

The song is to the tune of “To Anacreon in Heaven,” a popular British drinking song. The song became well-known as an American patriotic song. With a range of one and a half octaves, it is known for being notoriously difficult to sing. It was recognized for official use by the United States Navy (1889) and the White House (1916), and was made the national anthem by a Congressional resolution on 3 March 1931 (46 Stat. 1508, codified at 36 USC 301). Although the song has four stanzas, only the first is commonly sung today.

The four films in this collection are highlighted below - one below each verse in the Star Spangled Banner.

O 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?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen thro’ the mist of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream
’Tis the star-spangled banner. Oh! long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation,
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.