Tom McMillan — Our Flag Was Still There: The story of the original Star-Spangled Banner

Tom McMillan

Learn about the improbable two-hundred year journey of the original Star-Spangled Banner—from Fort McHenry in 1814, when Francis Scott Key first saw it, to the Smithsonian today—and the enduring military family who defended, kept hid and ultimately donated the most famous flag in American history. It exists today in part because Lieutenant Colonel George Armistead, the hero of Fort McHenry, took it home as a souvenir after the battle, in violation of U.S. Army rules! Learn why the flag has 15 stripes; why it is eight feet shorter than its original length; and why it was once locked away in a vault in New York City for 27 years. But it’s still here!