"The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United
States. The lyrics came from the "Defence of Fort M’Henry", a
poem written on September 14, 1814, by 35-year-old lawyer and
amateur poet Francis Scott Key after witnessing the bombardment
of Fort McHenry by British ships of the Royal Navy in Outer
Baltimore Harbor in the Patapsco River during the Battle of
Baltimore in the War of 1812 (below). Key was inspired by the large
U.S. flag, with 15 stars and 15 stripes, known as the Star-Spangled
Banner, flying triumphantly above the fort during the U.S. victory.        

The poem was set to the tune of a popular British song written by
John Stafford Smith.

Francis Scott Key   (1779 – 1843)

He became a successful lawyer in Maryland and
Washington, D.C., and was later appointed U.S.
attorney for the District of Columbia.

The American flag was flown in battle for the first time on this day
in 1777, during a Revolutionary War skirmish at Cooch’s Bridge, Delaware. Patriot General William Maxwell ordered the stars and
stripes banner raised as a detachment of his infantry and cavalry
met an advance guard of British and Hessian troops.

The rebels were defeated and forced to retreat to General George Washington’s main force near Brandywine Creek in Pennsylvania.

    
        
Camille Bohannon
     
   

Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014)

Williams is regarded as one of the greatest comedians of
all time.

On June 25, 1876, Native American forces led by Crazy Horse
and Sitting Bull defeated the U.S. Army troops of Lt. Col. George
Armstrong Custer in the Battle of the Little Bighorn near southern Montana’s Little Bighorn River.

Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, Lakota Sioux leaders, strongly
resisted the mid-19th-century efforts of the U.S. government
to confine their people to reservations. In 1875, after gold was
discovered in South Dakota’s Black Hills, the U.S. Army ignored
previous treaty agreements and invaded the region. This betrayal
led many Sioux and Cheyenne tribesmen to leave their reservations
and join Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse in Montana.