He wrote the national anthem on a British warship. Here's the full story. 🇺🇸

[00:00:00]During the War of 1812, lawyer Francis Scott Key stood on a British warship in Baltimore Harbor, not as a soldier, but as a hostage negotiator.

[00:00:12]British forces had just burned Washington, >> [music] >> and now they were pounding Fort McHenry for 25 straight hours to seize the vital port.

[00:00:21]He had no idea if the young United States would survive the night.

[00:00:26]At dawn, through the smoke, he saw the enormous American flag still flying over the fort.

[00:00:33]That huge flag had been hand-sewn by Baltimore widow Mary Pickersgill, her daughter, nieces, [music] and an indentured black teenager named Grace Wisher.

[00:00:44]Because it was so large, they stitched it together on the floor of a brewery.

[00:00:49]Overcome with relief, he wrote a poem on the spot. It became the national anthem 117 years later.