14th September: National Anthem Day

National Anthem Day commemorates the writing of the words to the USA National Anthem, Star Spangled Banner. Here are some interesting facts about National Anthems of the world.

1. The words to The Star Spangled Banner was written by Francis Scott-Key after witnessing the attack on Fort McHenry by the British in 1814. He didn't write the tune. It was Key's brother-in-law who noticed the words fit the tune of a song called The Anareontic Song. This song was actually a drinking song which had been adopted as the theme song of an 18th century gentleman's club in London. Ironic,or what?
2. Liechtenstein's anthem is Oben am jungen Rhein - which is sung to the tune of God Save the Queen.
3. While God Save the Queen (or King) is recognised as the oldest national anthem to be recognised as such, dating back to 1745, the oldest melody is the Dutch anthem - the first written version of the Wilhelmus dates back to 1574 (The lyrics, incidentally, consist of 15 verses and the first letter of each verse spells out Willem van Nassov, a hero of the Dutch revolt against Spain). The oldest lyrics belong to Japan, written by an anonymous author in the ninth century.
4. On the subject of Japan, they have the shortest National Anthem in the world at just four lines. Greece has the longest with 158 stanzas.
5. There are four countries whose National Anthems have no words. Spain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and San Marino. Spain did try to come up with words for its anthem in 2007 by holding a competition, but nobody really liked the winning entry so the anthem remains wordless.
6. South Africa has the record for the greatest number of different languages contained in its stanzas - five. It isn't the only multi-lingual national anthem, though. New Zealand's has two and Switzerland's has four.
7. Germany's anthem was banned for a while after the second world war because of the phrase “Deutschland über alles”. It has been re-instated, but nowadays only the third stanza is used as it is the least nationalistic.
8. St Helena, a tiny island in the South Atlantic, has an anthem written by someone who had never even been there. He was an American called David Mitchell, and the nearest he'd got was Ascension Island, 800 miles away. Inspired by looking at some postcards of the island, he came up with "My St. Helena Island," the only country-western style national anthem in the world.
9. Malaysia's anthem came about in 1888, when the Sultan of Perak came to London at the invitation of Queen Victoria. His aide was asked for the music of their National Anthem so it could be played at the welcome ceremony. The aide was too embarrassed to admit they didn't actually have one, and hummed the first melody that came into his head, a popular tune from the Seychelles.
10. A couple of anthems were written under duress. In Mexico in 1853, there was a competition to come up with the most inspiring lyrics for the National Anthem. The winner was poet Francicso González Bocanegra. He only entered because he had a rather ambitious girlfriend who locked him in a room and wouldn't let him out until he'd written something. Despite this, he still married her. Even harsher, in Costa Rica the same year, composer Manuel Maria Gutierrez was thrown into prison until he came up with a suitable tune.