The Star-Spangled Banner became the US national anthem
On this day · 3 March 1931
It took more than a century, a five-million-name petition, and a single presidential signature to make a War of 1812 poem America's official song.
On March 3, 1931, President Herbert Hoover signed the law that designated “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the official national anthem of the United States. The same day, the Senate gave its final approval, completing a legislative journey that had begun years earlier.
The words came from a poem by Francis Scott Key, written in 1814 after he watched the American flag survive a British bombardment of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. The verse was later set to the melody of a popular British social-club tune, and for generations it competed with songs like “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” for patriotic primacy.
The push to make it official was led by Maryland Representative John Linthicum, whose bill (H.R. 14) passed the House in April 1930 and the Senate the following year. Public pressure helped: veterans’ groups gathered a petition reportedly carrying around five million signatures.
A drinking-club melody and a battlefield poem became, by a stroke of the pen, the sound of a nation.
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