Posting vignettes based on great postcards found in my mail box and elsewhere.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Oh, say can you see...

This card of Fort McHenry was one of two cards sent recently by Stephen from Baltimore, Maryland. This was the fort the British bombarded for 25 hours on September 13, 1814, during the War of 1812. Had they passed and landed in Baltimore Harbor we Americans might be a part of the U.K. This is also the battle that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem "Defense of Fort McHenry. The poem would later be set to music, eventually retitled the Star-Spangled Banner and designated our national anthem in 1931. The site today is a national monument and an historic shrine under the authority of the National Park Service.