Who was Francis Scott Key, whose namesake bridge fell? His poem became ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’

A major bridge that collapsed in Baltimore after getting hit by a ship is named for Francis Scott Key, who turned a wartime experience in the early 19th century into the poem that became the national anthem of the United States. Key was a prominent attorney in the region during the first half of the 19th century. In September 1814, two years after the War of 1812 had started between the United States and the British, he was on a ship to negotiate an American prisoner's release and witnessed a 25-hour British bombardment of Fort McHenry.