the US national anthem . It was written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key, an American lawyer, as he watched British ships trying without success to capture Fort McHenry in Maryland during the War of 1812 . He wrote the words and added the music of an old British song. The US Congress officially made it the country’s national anthem in 1931. It ends:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!