National Anthem - Our Lost Founding Archives

On this day in 1931, President Herbert Hoover signs a congressional act making “The Star-Spangled Banner” the official national anthem of the United States.

On September 14, 1814, during the War of 1812, American attorney Francis Scott Key was detained aboard a British ship in Baltimore Harbor where he witnessed the massive overnight British bombardment of Fort McHenry. Seeing the American flag still flying in the morning inspired him to write his poem, the “Defence of Fort M’Henry.” A few months later, the poem was set to music of “To Anacreon in Heaven” and renamed “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

In God We Trust

As we (should) know, our National Motto is “In God We Trust,” and has been for over 60 years.
In fact, we find an early iteration of it in the fourth verse of “The Star-Spangled Banner”:

“Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d 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.”

It is that key couplet that inspired Our Star-Spangled Motto shirt, available HERE.

My visit to Fort McHenry in April 2014 was one “key” experience that led me to start Our Lost Founding.

On this day in 1920, This Side of Paradise by famous St. Paul, Minnesota native F. Scott Fitzgerald, is published. It was the first novel by the author of the more well-known title The Great Gatsby.

In fact, Fitzgerald was named after his second cousin, three times removed on his father’s side. That F. Scott is also famous for something he wrote.

That side of paradise…

Of course, that first F. Scott was none other than Francis Scott Key, who penned The Star-Spangled Banner, of which the first verse is our national anthem.

Fitzgerald’s final resting place is in Maryland, about thirty miles from Key, and about forty miles from Fort McHenry, where Key saw our flag “by the dawn’s early light.”

Finally, see our Men’s and Women’s Star-Spangled Motto “In God is Our Trust” shirts, inspired by the first F. Scott, are here in Our Shop.

From “Defence of Fort M’Henry” to Our National Anthem

In God We Trust

Did You Know? From one F. Scott to another

That side of paradise…