Francis Scott Key – 1779-1843

Baltimore attorney Key was detained by the British aboard a warship in Baltimore Harbor during the attack on that city in the War of 1812. He passed the night anxiously observing the naval bombardment of Fort McHenry, sentinel guarding the approach to Baltimore. When the dawn’s early light revealed that the star-spangled banner still waved— signifying the British failure to capture the fort— Key wrote the verses that were later set (by others) to an old English tavern tune (“To Anacreon in Heaven”) and became the words of the National Anthem. (“The Star-Spangled Banner” was officially proclaimed the anthem by President Herbert Hoover in 1931.)