Q 01/05

Which country was the first to adopt an official national anthem, by decree in 1795?

A) France

B) United Kingdom

C) Spain

D) Netherlands

Answer · why

A) France

La Marseillaise then lost its status under Napoleon and was banned by later kings before being reinstated for good in the 1870s.

Q 02/05

Francis Scott Key wrote The Star-Spangled Banner after watching the British bombard which fort?

A) Detroit

B) Ticonderoga

C) Sumter

D) McHenry

Answer · why

D) McHenry

The poem was originally titled Defence of Fort M'Henry and describes the Battle of Baltimore in September 1814.

Q 03/05

John Stafford Smith wrote The Star-Spangled Banner's tune for a gentlemen's club in which city?

A) Boston

B) London

C) Philadelphia

D) Dublin

Answer · why

B) London

The Anacreontic Society's song was already popular in America with various sets of words before Key's poem was attached to it.

Q 04/05

Which US president signed the 1931 law making The Star-Spangled Banner the official national anthem?

A) Franklin D. Roosevelt

B) Woodrow Wilson

C) Herbert Hoover

D) Calvin Coolidge

Answer · why

C) Herbert Hoover

Congress passed the joint resolution on March 3, 1931, more than a century after the song was written.

Q 05/05

How many stanzas does Francis Scott Key's original poem have?

A) Three

B) Four

C) Two

D) Six

Answer · why

B) Four

Only the first is normally performed, though the US Code makes all of them the official anthem.