They didn’t know until they saw the flag that we’d won, so this is the genesis of the poem. O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

The Star Spangled Banner is part of a poem about a battle ... bombs bursting in air” and still the American flag was visible over the “ramparts” of Fort McHenry, at great peril to those ...

The flags of the United States and United Kingdom ... later became known as the lyrics of The Star-Spangled Banner, which officially became the national anthem of the United States in 1931.