When did “The Star-Spangled Banner” become the national anthem for America?

The four-stanza song was adopted as the national anthem by the U.S. Congress in 1931.

Francis Scott Key wrote the lyrics in 1814, taking the melody from an eighteenth-century drinking song called “To Anacreon in Heaven” by British composer John Stafford Smith.

Anacreon was a Greek lyric poet [563-478 B.c.] associated with love and wine.

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