September 13 Birthday
On September 13, 1814, Francis Scott Key, a thirty-five-year-old lawyer, watched the British bombardment of Fort McHenry from a ship in Baltimore Harbor. He had been negotiating the release of a prisoner and was held aboard the British fleet. The bombardment lasted twenty-five hours, and through the night, Key could see the fort's flag still flying. At dawn, the flag was still there. He wrote a poem, "Defence of Fort M'Henry," which was set to the tune of a British drinking song, "To Anacreon in Heaven." It became the national anthem in 1931. The flag was thirty by forty-two feet and is now in the Smithsonian. Roald Dahl, born this day in 1916, was a fighter pilot, a spy, and the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, and James and the Giant Peach. His stories are dark, funny, and cruel to adults. He was six-foot-six. He invented a surgical valve for his son, who had hydrocephalus, working with a toymaker to design it. The Wade-Dahl-Till valve saved thousands of lives. People born on September 13 fall under the zodiac sign of Virgo. The birthstone is Sapphire and the birth flower is Aster. Historical events on September 13 include 1814: Francis Scott Key writes "The Star-Spangled Banner" during bombardment of Fort McHenry, 1993: Israel-PLO Oslo Accords signed at White House, 1971: Attica prison uprising begins in New York. Famous people born on September 13 include Roald Dahl (1916), Jacqueline Bisset (1944), Nell Carter (1948).