“Defence of Fort M’Henry” was the title of the poem that became the lyrics of the U.S. national anthem.
Francis Scott Key wrote the poem in 1814 after witnessing the British bombardment of Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812. He saw the large American flag still flying over the fort at dawn and wrote verses inspired by that sight.
The poem was soon printed and set to the melody of “The Anacreontic Song,” a British tune associated with a London gentlemen’s music club. The song gradually became known as “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Congress made it the official national anthem on March 3, 1931.
The title is often missed because the familiar anthem title is not the poem’s original title. The flag that inspired Key had fifteen stars and fifteen stripes, reflecting the Union’s size in 1814 rather than the modern fifty-star design.