The Johnson High School Marching Band played The Star Spangled Banner in downtown Gainesville Friday.
GAINESVILLE - Saturday marks 200 years since the writing of Francis Scott Key's "Star Spangled Banner," a song that would later become America's National Anthem.<br />
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Friday the Gainesville Phoenix Woman's Club celebrated the occasion by bringing together the Johnson High School Marching Band and the Gainesville High School Crimson Chorus to perform the song in downtown Gainesville.<br />
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Patty Laine, a Phoenix Club member and Hall County's Probate Judge, organized the lunchtime event at Kenyon Plaza. <br />
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"I thought this would be a good way for our club to do something to help educate and celebrate this momentous occasion," said Laine.<br />
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Laine reminded the audience that Francis Scott Key wrote the song as he watched the American flag flying over Ft. McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore during the War of 1812.<br />
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<i>Editor's Note: The "Star Spangled Banner" did not become the National Anthem until 1931 when President Herbert Hoover signed legislation making it so.</i><br />
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<b>LYRICS FOR THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER</B><br />
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<b><i>Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light<br />
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?<br />
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,<br />
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?<br />
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,<br />
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.<br />
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave<br />
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?<br />
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On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,<br />
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,<br />
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,<br />
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?<br />
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,<br />
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:<br />
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave<br />
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!<br />
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And where is that band who so vauntingly swore<br />
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,<br />
A home and a country should leave us no more!<br />
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.<br />
No refuge could save the hireling and slave<br />
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:<br />
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave<br />
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!<br />
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Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand<br />
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!<br />
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land<br />
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.<br />
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,<br />
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."<br />
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave<br />
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!</b></i>
