You've had The Star-Spangled Banner running through your mind all day and you weren't sure why. Francis Scott Key was born on this date in 1779.



The poem that became our national anthem is one of the high points of Key's substantial life but he was in all his work "an individual whose heart beat for God," in the words of Rev. Byron Snapp in his foreword to the reprint of the Delaplaine biography.



Here is one of the hymns written by Francis Scott Key: Lord, With Glowing Heart I’d Praise Thee