85 Fun Facts About National Anthem

Who wrote the words of Turkey's national anthem, the İstiklal Marşı, adopted in 1921?

Mehmet Akif Ersoy wrote the İstiklal Marşı; Turkey's Grand National Assembly adopted it on 12 March 1921, and Ersoy refused the prize money.

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

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

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

John Stafford Smith composed the tune, 'To Anacreon in Heaven', in the 1770s for the Anacreontic Society, a gentlemen's music club in London.

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

Herbert Hoover signed the act on March 3, 1931, making The Star-Spangled Banner the official national anthem more than a century after Key wrote it.

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

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

The flag Francis Scott Key saw flying over the fort in 1814 had how many stars and stripes?

Mary Pickersgill sewed it in her Baltimore home; the flag itself now hangs in the Smithsonian.

In his instrumental Star-Spangled Banner, Jimi Hendrix used distortion and the vibrato arm to imitate what?

Hendrix's feedback and whammy-bar dives mimic rockets and bombs, the 'rockets' red glare' of the lyric, most famously at Woodstock in 1969.

Roseanne Barr's notorious 1990 anthem performance took place before a home game of which baseball team?

Barr sang before a San Diego Padres game at Jack Murphy Stadium on July 25, 1990, then grabbed her crotch and spat, drawing loud boos.

During which part of Game One of the 1918 World Series was the anthem famously played?

The band struck up the anthem during the seventh-inning stretch of Game One at Comiskey Park on September 5, 1918, and the crowd rose and sang.

The British national anthem's melody is also the anthem of which small European country?

Liechtenstein's anthem, Oben am jungen Rhein, is sung to the British anthem's melody; Switzerland used the same tune until 1961, and Americans know it as My Country, 'Tis of Thee.

Beethoven wrote a set of seven piano variations on which national anthem?

Beethoven's seven variations on God Save the King (WoO 78) date from 1803; J.C. Bach had already varied the same tune in a 1763 keyboard concerto.

Which song is used as England's anthem in cricket instead of the British national anthem?

England's cricket teams adopted Jerusalem, Parry's 1916 setting of Blake's poem, in the mid-2000s; most other England sides use the British anthem.

La Marseillaise was written in 1792 in which city?

Rouget de Lisle wrote it in Strasbourg on the night of 25 April 1792; the nickname came later, when volunteers from Marseille sang it marching to Paris.

What was La Marseillaise originally titled?

Rouget de Lisle titled it Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du Rhin, the War Song for the Army of the Rhine, composed in a single night in April 1792, days after war was declared on Austria.

O Canada was commissioned for the 1880 celebration of which holiday?

Lieutenant Governor Théodore Robitaille commissioned it for the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day celebrations of 1880; Calixa Lavallée's setting of Routhier's words was first performed in Quebec City on June 24.

In which year did O Canada officially become Canada's national anthem?

It had been the de facto anthem since 1939; the National Anthem Act took effect on July 1, 1980.

Which poet wrote the words of Finland's national anthem, Maamme, in 1846?

Johan Ludvig Runeberg wrote Vårt land (Maamme) in Swedish in 1846; Fredrik Pacius set it to music for a student celebration on 13 May 1848.

Advance Australia Fair became the national anthem in 1984 under which prime minister?

Bob Hawke's government had Advance Australia Fair proclaimed the national anthem on 19 April 1984, after an earlier plebiscite had favoured it over Waltzing Matilda.

The lyrics of Japan's Kimigayo, the oldest of any national anthem, come from a poem of which form?

The text is a waka, a 31-syllable court poem from the Heian-period Kokin Wakashū anthology; the melody adopted in 1880 replaced an unpopular 1869 setting.

In which year did Japan's Act on National Flag and Anthem officially recognize Kimigayo?

The Act on National Flag and Anthem passed on 13 August 1999, giving Kimigayo legal status after more than a century of customary use.

A bandmaster from which country wrote the first, unpopular tune for Japan's anthem in 1869?

John William Fenton, stationed in Yokohama, noticed Japan had no anthem and suggested one; his tune was replaced in 1880.

The Wilhelmus, a 16th-century song, is the national anthem of which country?

The Wilhelmus, written about 1568–1572 during the Dutch Revolt, became the Netherlands' official national anthem only in 1932.

The first letters of the fifteen stanzas of the Wilhelmus form an acrostic spelling what?

The fifteen stanzas' initials spell Willem van Nassov, an acrostic signature for William of Orange, leader of the Dutch revolt the song describes.

India's Jana Gana Mana was written by Rabindranath Tagore in which language?

Tagore composed the words in Bengali, in a heavily Sanskritised register; it was first sung at the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress on 27 December 1911.

Rabindranath Tagore wrote the national anthems of India and which other country?

Tagore's Amar Shonar Bangla, written in 1905, was adopted as the anthem of Bangladesh at independence in 1971.

A formal rendition of India's national anthem takes approximately how many seconds?

The full version of Jana Gana Mana is specified to take about 52 seconds; a short version of the first and last lines takes about 20.

Haydn's melody for the German anthem was written in 1797 for the birthday of which Habsburg ruler?

Haydn's Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser was first performed on Emperor Francis II's birthday, 12 February 1797; Hoffmann von Fallersleben fitted new words to it in 1841.

Since German reunification, which stanza of the Deutschlandlied is the national anthem?

The third stanza's call for unity, justice and freedom was reconfirmed as the sole anthem in 1991.

Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote the German anthem's words in 1841 on which North Sea island?

The island was British at the time and only became German through the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty of 1890.

In which year did Italy's Il Canto degli Italiani finally gain legal status as the national anthem?

Law 181 of 4 December 2017 made Il Canto degli Italiani the official anthem; it had been provisional since October 1946.

Goffredo Mameli, who wrote the words of Italy's anthem in 1847, was a young patriot from which city?

Mameli was born in Genoa in 1827 and wrote the words at twenty; Michele Novaro set them to music, and Mameli died in 1849 defending the Roman Republic.

In which city did Józef Wybicki write Poland's anthem, Dąbrowski's Mazurka, in 1797?

Józef Wybicki wrote the words in Reggio Emilia in July 1797 for Jan Henryk Dąbrowski's Polish Legions, then serving alongside Napoleon's army.

In which year did Charles III of Spain declare the Marcha de Granaderos the official Honor March?

Charles III's decree of 3 September 1770 made the Marcha de Granaderos the official honour march; the tune had been printed in a 1761 book of fife and drum calls.

South Africa's national anthem uses how many of the country's official languages?

Five languages are used: Xhosa, Zulu, Sesotho, Afrikaans and English, in that order, and everyone sings all of them regardless of mother tongue.

South Africa's 1997 anthem splices Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika together with which apartheid-era anthem?

Die Stem chronicled the Voortrekkers and the Great Trek; new English lyrics were added to close the hybrid.

Enoch Sontonga composed Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika in 1897 at a Methodist mission school near which city?

Sontonga, a teacher at a Methodist mission school in Nancefield near Johannesburg, wrote the Xhosa hymn in 1897; it became a pan-African liberation song.

The melody of Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika is the national anthem of Tanzania and which other country?

Zambia's Stand and Sing of Zambia, Proud and Free uses the melody, as does Tanzania's Mungu ibariki Afrika; Zimbabwe and Namibia dropped it in the 1990s.

How many stanzas did Dionysios Solomos write for Greece's Hymn to Liberty, the longest anthem text?

Solomos wrote 158 stanzas in 1823; only the first two, set by Nikolaos Mantzaros, have served as the anthem since Greece adopted it in 1865.

Greece's national anthem is also the anthem of which other country?

Cyprus adopted it by order of its Council of Ministers in 1966.

Who locked poet Francisco González Bocanegra in a room until he wrote an entry for Mexico's 1853 anthem contest?

His fiancée, Guadalupe González del Pino, locked him in until he produced the poem; it won the contest, and Jaime Nunó set it to music in 1854.

Russia's anthem since 2000 reuses the melody of the Soviet anthem, composed by whom?

Alexander Alexandrov composed the melody for the 1944 Soviet anthem; Sergey Mikhalkov, who wrote the 1944 words, wrote the new Russian lyrics too in 2000.

Russia's lyric-free anthem from 1990 to 2000, the Patriotic Song, was composed by whom?

The Patriotic Song was a wordless piano piece by Mikhail Glinka from the 1830s; Yeltsin confirmed it by decree in 1993 and Putin replaced it in 2000.

The State Anthem of the Soviet Union, adopted in 1944, replaced which song?

The Internationale had served since 1918; Stalin replaced it in 1944, shortly after dissolving the Comintern, to present a more national face to the wartime Allies.

In which year did the Soviet anthem receive new lyrics that dropped references to Stalin?

Sergey Mikhalkov revised his own text in 1977, dropping Stalin; the anthem had been performed without words since 1956 and was nicknamed the song without words.

The melody of Israel's Hatikvah is based on a 16th-century song from which country?

The tune descends from La Mantovana, a song from Italy of about 1600 that spread across the continent under many names; Smetana used a version of it in Vltava.

In which year did Israel's Knesset officially adopt Hatikvah as the national anthem?

The Knesset gave Hatikvah legal status in November 2004, amending the Flag and Emblem Law; the words come from Naftali Herz Imber's 1878 poem Tikvatenu.

China's March of the Volunteers was written in 1935 for what?

It was the theme song of the 1935 film Children of Troubled Times; Nie Er wrote the melody and drowned in Japan that same year, aged 23.

Tian Han, lyricist of China's anthem, died in prison in 1968 during which upheaval?

Tian Han was denounced during the Cultural Revolution and died in prison in December 1968; for years the anthem was played without his words.

The European anthem is adapted from the final movement of which Beethoven symphony?

The Ode to Joy theme from the Ninth Symphony's finale was adopted by the Council of Europe in 1972 and the European Union in 1985, played without Schiller's words.

The Olympic Hymn by Spyridon Samaras was first performed at which Games?

Samaras's hymn, to words by Kostis Palamas, was first performed at the opening of the Athens 1896 Games; the IOC made it official only in 1958.

Evan James and his son James James, who wrote the Welsh anthem in 1856, lived in which town?

Father and son lived in Pontypridd, where Evan James was a weaver; the song was first performed in the vestry of Tabor Chapel, Maesteg, in January 1856.

Wales first sang its anthem at a sporting event before a 1905 rugby match against which touring team?

The crowd sang it in answer to the All Blacks' haka, and Wales won.

Flower of Scotland was written in the mid-1960s by Roy Williamson of which folk group?

Roy Williamson of The Corries wrote it in the mid-1960s; Scotland's rugby team took it up after winger Billy Steele got team-mates singing it on the 1974 Lions tour.

Flower of Scotland celebrates Robert the Bruce's victory over the English at which 1314 battle?

The song recalls Bannockburn, where Robert the Bruce defeated Edward II's army in June 1314; it became Scotland's usual sporting anthem in the 1990s.

Who translated Ireland's anthem into Irish, producing the version almost always sung?

Liam Ó Rinn published his Irish translation, Amhrán na bhFiann, in 1923; the English original was adopted in July 1926, the Irish version never formally.

In which language is the first verse of God Defend New Zealand usually sung first?

Custom since the 1990s is to sing the first verse in Māori (Aotearoa) and then in English; Thomas Bracken wrote the English poem in the 1870s.

When Emilio Aguinaldo commissioned the Philippine anthem in 1898, what form did it take?

Julián Felipe's march was first played at the proclamation of independence in Kawit; José Palma's Spanish words came a year later.

Nepal officially adopted its anthem Sayaun Thunga Phulka in which year?

Sayaun Thunga Phulka was adopted on 3 August 2007, replacing the royal anthem Shriman Gambhir, in use since 1962, as the monarchy was on its way out.

In May 2024, lawmakers in Abuja readopted which anthem, the one used at independence in 1960?

Nigeria, We Hail Thee, with words by expatriate Lillian Jean Williams and music by Frances Berda, served from 1960 to 1978 and was restored on 29 May 2024.

South Korea's Aegukga was originally sung to the tune of which Scottish song?

Early on, the words were sung to Auld Lang Syne; Ahn Eak-tai composed a new melody in 1935, which the Korean government-in-exile took up and South Korea kept in 1948.

Thailand's national anthem is broadcast nationwide every day at 8 a.m. and at what other time?

The anthem plays at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., matching the raising and lowering of the flag; people in public places are expected to stop and stand.

Which country's anthem is the longest in the world by duration, running 105 bars and up to six minutes?

Uruguay's Orientales, la Patria o la Tumba runs about 105 bars and up to six minutes in full; only the opening and chorus are normally sung at sporting events.

Kenya's national anthem is based on a traditional tune of which people?

The tune was a lullaby that Pokomo mothers sang to their children; a special commission turned it into an anthem in 1963.

Where did Perucho Figueredo write the words of Cuba's anthem, La Bayamesa, in 1868?

Legend has it Figueredo wrote the words on his horse's saddle as crowds in Bayamo surrounded him after the city's surrender on 20 October 1868.

Algeria's anthem, Kassaman, was reportedly written by Moufdi Zakaria on his prison cell wall using what?

Zakaria is said to have written Kassaman in his own blood on the wall of his cell in Barberousse Prison in 1955; Egyptian composer Mohamed Fawzi set it to music.

The music of the Vatican's Pontifical Anthem was composed in 1869 by which composer?

Charles Gounod wrote the Marche Pontificale in 1869 for the golden jubilee of Pius IX's priestly ordination; it became the official papal anthem only in 1949.

Slovenia's anthem, Zdravljica, is a poem by the Romantic poet Prešeren whose title means what?

Zdravljica means 'A Toast': Prešeren's 1844 poem is shaped as a drinking song, its stanzas printed to look like wine glasses, and the seventh stanza is the anthem.

Which country's grand ducal anthem is De Wilhelmus, distinct from its national anthem Ons Heemecht?

Luxembourg plays De Wilhelmus, the House of Nassau's tune, for its grand ducal family; Ons Heemecht, written in 1859, became the national anthem by law in 1993.

Which monarch suggested Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance No. 1 trio would make a great song?

Edward VII told Elgar the trio melody would 'go round the world' and wanted words for it; A. C. Benson wrote Land of Hope and Glory in 1902, a Last Night of the Proms fixture.

By law, Singapore's anthem Majulah Singapura may only be sung in which language?

The constitution declares Malay the national language, even though it is a minority language in Singapore.

Austria's anthem, Land der Berge, Land am Strome, is sometimes credited to which famous composer?

The melody, long attributed to Mozart as the finale of his 1791 Masonic cantata, is more often credited to Johann Holzer; Paula von Preradović wrote the words in 1946.

Who composed the music of Norway's national anthem, Ja, vi elsker dette landet?

Rikard Nordraak composed the melody in 1864 for Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's poem; it was first sung publicly at the 17 May 1864 celebrations of the constitution's fiftieth anniversary.

Which folk song replaced both anthems when the Koreas marched together at the 2018 Winter Olympics?

Arirang, a folk song cherished on both sides of the border, accompanied the joint Korean team at the 2018 Pyeongchang opening ceremony under the unification flag.

Du gamla, du fria serves as the national anthem of which country?

Du gamla, du fria, with words by Richard Dybeck from 1844 set to a folk tune, serves as Sweden's anthem by custom; it has never been adopted by law.

Blas Parera, who composed the music of Argentina's anthem, was a musician from which country?

Blas Parera was born in Murcia, Spain, in 1776 and worked in Buenos Aires as an organist and music teacher; Vicente López y Planes wrote the words.

Who wrote Advance Australia Fair, first performed in Sydney in 1878?

Peter Dodds McCormick, a Scottish-born Sydney schoolteacher, wrote both words and music; it was first performed at a St Andrew's Day concert on 30 November 1878.

In which year was 'God Save the King' first performed?

The anthem was first performed publicly at the Drury Lane theatre in September 1745, during the Jacobite rising, after appearing in print in 1744.

Malaysia's national anthem uses the tune that was already the anthem of which constituent state?

The tune was already Perak's state anthem, Allah Lanjutkan Usia Sultan, when the selection committee chose it as Negaraku in 1957.

Which composer invited to write Malaya's anthem later composed Singapore's 'Majulah Singapura'?

Zubir Said, whose submission for the Federation's anthem was passed over in 1957, composed Majulah Singapura in 1958 for Singapore's City Council; it became the state anthem in 1959.

The lyrics of Colombia's national anthem were written by which former president?

Rafael Núñez, president four times between 1880 and 1894, wrote the poem in 1850; Oreste Sindici's setting was first performed in Bogotá on 11 November 1887.

Brazil's first anthem, the Hino da Independência, was composed by whom?

Emperor Pedro I composed the Hino da Independência in 1822, the year he proclaimed independence; Francisco Manuel da Silva's melody replaced it as the national anthem after Pedro's 1831 abdication.

In which year did the Swiss Psalm officially become Switzerland's national anthem?

The Federal Council declared the Swiss Psalm the official national anthem on 1 April 1981, after twenty years of provisional status; Alberich Zwyssig composed it in 1841.

In which year was Mexico's national anthem, composed in 1854, officially adopted?

President Manuel Ávila Camacho's decree of 1943 made the anthem official; Jaime Nunó had composed the music in 1854 for Francisco González Bocanegra's words.

Who composed the music of Chile's national anthem, first performed in 1828?

Ramón Carnicer, a Catalan composer then living in exile, wrote the music that premiered in Santiago on 23 December 1828; Eusebio Lillo supplied new words in 1847.

In Tanzania, to whom is the national anthem played each day as an exercise in patriotism?

Tanzanian schoolchildren sing the anthem, Mungu ibariki Afrika, at morning assembly on every school day; the tune is Enoch Sontonga's Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika.