Threads of Life
Independence!
Why do we celebrate the nation’s Independence Day with fireworks? I tried to do some research on this and all the information I came up with was about the fl ag and how the words to the National Anthem, The Star Spangled Banner, came to be written. Why fireworks to celebrate?
Our nation celebrates the 4th of July because that is the anniversary date of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain, on July 4th , 1776. The words to The Star Spangled Banner were written at the conclusion of the War of 1812. That was when British troops came back to try to regain possession of the American colonies. Even though I had grandfathers who fought in both wars, I never could understand why Britain had again declared war in 1812 when we had won the War for Independence in 1776. One of my plans this week is to go to the library and read up on the War of 1812. Of course, research on the Internet is a plan also.
How many of us can sing all the words to all four verses of the National Anthem? I know the first verse very well, and can sing a part of the second and fourth verses, but the third verse is almost foreign to me.
The words to this song were written by Francis Scott Key on the morning of September 14th , 1814 when he spotted a large American Flag flying over Ft. Henry, near Baltimore as he was negotiating the release of an American prisoner aboard a ship anchored in the harbor. He pulled an letter from his pocket and on the back wrote the words “O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light…..”
The song was adopted as our National Anthem in 1931. The flag that flew over Ft. McHenry that day in 1814, is now displayed in the Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. I visited that museum several times on my visits to the nation’s capital. I have also been on the Mall on three different occasions on the 4th of July there. It is an awesome experience to be in the crowd of several thousand persons on that special day, to watch the program presented and then to watch the fi reworks over the lake and the Jefferson Monument. I’ll be watching the program from my easy chair in the living room this year and probably wishing that I were there in person.