90 Years With a Rotten Anthem

The “Star-Spangled Banner” became the National Anthem of the United States today in 1931.

Francis Scott Key, who wrote the lyrics, was a slave-owning racist, and is buried up the street from where I live. No one seems to ever know all the lyrics (there are racist stanzas), and the tune itself is almost unsingable.

The actual grave marker for Key is pretty modest, but there's a big statue on a tall plinth, which seems to have been added in modern times.