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The Fourth of July is a day of summer weather, barbeques and national hot dog eating competitions in America as the nation celebrates its independence.
But few people will know that the tune of the US national anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner”, a song sung proudly at every Super Bowl, actually originally came from England.
The melody to which Francis Scott Key set the lyrics was derived from “To Anacreon in Heaven”, the constitutional song of the Anacreontic Society, a private gentleman’s club in London.
The song was named after a Greek poet called Anacreon, who gained notoriety for his poems about women and drinking.
It went on to be a common song sung in taverns in colonial America, but Congress did not name it the official US anthem until 1931.