84 Fun Facts About National Anthem

Turkey adopted its anthem in 1921 in the middle of which conflict?

Its War of Independence was still being fought when the Grand National Assembly adopted Mehmet Akif Ersoy's poem on 12 March 1921, so Turkey had an anthem more than two years before it had a republic.

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

Fort McHenry withstood a 25-hour British bombardment in September 1814; Key watched from a truce ship, where he had gone to win a captured doctor's release, and titled his poem Defence of Fort M'Henry.

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

London's Anacreontic Society, a club of amateur musicians, sang Smith's tune as its club song; Key's brother-in-law noticed that the new poem fitted the melody, which Americans already knew.

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; the Navy had used the song at flag raisings since 1889 and Woodrow Wilson ordered it played at military occasions in 1916, but Congress had never made it official.

The Star-Spangled Banner's familiar first verse ends as what?

A question closes the first of Key's four verses, asking whether the flag still waves; the answer comes only in the later verses, which are almost never sung.

Which Washington institution now displays the huge flag that inspired The Star-Spangled Banner?

The Smithsonian has cared for the 15-star, 15-stripe flag for more than a century; it is several feet shorter than when it was sewn, because the family that owned it snipped off pieces as souvenirs and gifts.

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

Rockets and bombs are what his feedback and whammy-bar dives mimic, most famously at Woodstock in 1969; asked on television about the uproar, the former Army paratrooper said he thought it was beautiful.

Which sitcom star's screeching 1990 anthem before a San Diego Padres game drew a stadium full of boos?

Roseanne Barr screeched the anthem at Jack Murphy Stadium on July 25, 1990, then appeared to grab her crotch and spit; she later said the screech was unintended.

When in Game One of the 1918 World Series did a band famously play The Star-Spangled Banner?

The seventh-inning stretch of Game One, on September 5, 1918, brought a Navy band's rendition; Red Sox infielder Fred Thomas, on furlough from the Navy, saluted the flag and the wartime crowd joined in singing.

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

Liechtenstein's Oben am jungen Rhein is sung to the British tune, as Switzerland's anthem was until 1961; its words once hailed a German fatherland, and those lines were rewritten in 1963.

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

God Save the King gave Beethoven the theme for seven piano variations; Americans know the same tune as the patriotic song My Country, 'Tis of Thee.

Which song is used as an English anthem at cricket matches?

Jerusalem began as a little-noticed poem by Blake; a First World War anthology revived it more than a century later, Hubert Parry set it to music in 1916, and England's cricket board made it its official hymn.

Despite its name, La Marseillaise was written in 1792 in which city of Alsace?

Strasbourg's mayor asked army engineer Rouget de Lisle for a marching song in April 1792, and he wrote it overnight; it took its name from the Marseille volunteers who sang it as they entered Paris.

What was La Marseillaise originally titled?

War Song for the Army of the Rhine was Rouget de Lisle's own title in April 1792; the revolutionary song then fell from favour under two emperors and the restored kings, and returned for good only under the Third Republic.

Quebec's lieutenant governor commissioned O Canada for the 1880 celebration of which holiday?

Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day fell on 24 June, when the song was first sung at a Quebec City banquet with French words only; the English lyrics sung today came decades later and are not a translation.

O Canada's 2018 lyric change made the anthem what?

Gender-neutral wording arrived when 'in all thy sons command' became 'in all of us command'; the song had been the official anthem only since 1980, a full century after its first performance.

Finland's anthem, Maamme, shares its melody with the anthem of which nearby country?

Estonia sings Mu isamaa, mu õnn ja rõõm to the melody Fredrik Pacius wrote for Finland in 1848; when Soviet rule banned the anthem, Estonians near the coast kept hearing the tune on Finnish broadcasts.

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.

Which country's anthem sets a court poem more than a thousand years old, the oldest lyrics of any anthem?

Japan's Kimigayo takes its words from a waka in the tenth-century Kokin Wakashū anthology, yet its melody is modern: it was written in 1880, after an earlier tune by a foreign bandmaster fell flat.

Japan's anthem, Kimigayo, hopes a reign will last until pebbles become what?

Moss-covered boulders, grown from tiny pebbles, are the lyric's measure of a reign lasting thousands of years; the song was sung by custom for over a century and became the legal anthem only in 1999.

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

Britain's John William Fenton, a military bandmaster in Yokohama, told his Japanese pupils that a modern state needed an anthem and offered to compose one; his tune was judged to lack solemnity and replaced in 1880.

In the Dutch anthem, the Wilhelmus, the singer swears he has always honoured which ruler?

The King of Spain is honoured in the first verse, even though the song speaks as William of Orange, who led the revolt against that very king; it became the official anthem only in 1932.

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

Willem van Nassov is spelled by the stanzas' first letters, a signature for William of Orange; in modern Dutch spelling two stanzas now open with Z, so today's acrostic reads Nazzov.

Which song from the novel Anandamath ranks as India's national song, beside the anthem Jana Gana Mana?

Vande Mataram, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's hymn to the motherland, rallied the independence movement, but it was passed over as the anthem because its picture of the nation as a goddess troubled many Muslims.

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

Bangladesh's provisional government adopted Tagore's Amar Shonar Bangla, My Golden Bengal, in 1971; he is said to have written it decades earlier, amid the unrest over the partition of Bengal.

Which organisation first heard Jana Gana Mana sung, in 1911?

Indian National Congress delegates heard it at their Calcutta session in December 1911, led by Tagore's niece; Tagore later made the English translation himself.

Which composer wrote the melody of Germany's anthem in 1797 as a birthday hymn for Emperor Francis II?

Joseph Haydn wrote the tune as Austria's imperial hymn, Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser, and reused it in his Emperor Quartet; a German poet fitted new words to it in 1841, so Austria's old anthem became Germany's.

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

The third stanza, a call for unity, justice and freedom, was confirmed as the sole anthem in 1991; the first, 'Deutschland über alles', is left out because the Nazi regime had turned it into a slogan.

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

Heligoland was a British possession when the verses were written there in 1841; it became German only in 1890, under the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty, so Germany's anthem was written on foreign soil.

Italy's anthem, made official only in 2017, is popularly known by what name?

Fratelli d'Italia, Brothers of Italy, opens Mameli's 1847 text; chosen as a stopgap in October 1946, the anthem stayed provisional for 71 years until a 2017 law made it official.

Italy's anthem poet Goffredo Mameli died in 1849 after fighting in Rome as whose aide?

Giuseppe Garibaldi took Mameli as his aide in the defence of the Roman Republic in 1849; wounded in the leg on the Janiculum hill, the 21-year-old poet died a month later of the badly treated wound.

Which foreign leader does Poland's anthem hold up as an example?

Napoleon Bonaparte is named because the song was written in 1797 for Dąbrowski's Polish Legions, who were serving under him in Reggio Emilia, two years after Poland had been partitioned off the map.

Spain's Marcha Real is one of the few national anthems without what?

Official lyrics have never been agreed for the Marcha Real: the words sung under Alfonso XIII and under Franco were never adopted and are now tied to dictatorship, so the anthem is played without singing.

South Africa's five-language anthem is unusual for ending in a different what?

Musical key is what shifts, because the anthem joins two separate songs: it starts in G major and ends in D major, and its five languages run Xhosa, Zulu, Sesotho, Afrikaans, then English.

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

Die Stem van Suid-Afrika, The Call of South Africa, had been the official anthem since 1957; from 1994 the two songs were joint anthems, each played in full, until they were merged into one in 1997.

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 sings its own words, Stand and Sing of Zambia, Proud and Free, to the melody; Zimbabwe used the tune as well until 1994, when it adopted a newly composed anthem instead.

Which country's anthem uses two stanzas of a 158-stanza poem written during its 1820s war of independence?

Greece's Hymn to Liberty runs to 158 stanzas, written by Dionysios Solomos in 1823 during the revolt against Ottoman rule; only the first two are sung, though the composer also set the whole poem to music.

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

Cyprus named no anthem in its 1960 constitution and its two communities could not agree on one; in 1966, after the Turkish Cypriot ministers had left the government, the Greek Cypriot ones adopted Greece's hymn.

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, turned the key; four hours later he slid a ten-verse poem under the door, and it went on to win the contest unanimously.

Which leader brought back the Soviet anthem's melody for Russia in 2000, with new words?

Vladimir Putin pushed the change through in December 2000, his first year in office; Sergei Mikhalkov, who had co-written the original 1944 words, was called on again to write new lyrics for Alexandrov's melody.

Russia's wordless 1990s anthem, the Patriotic Song, was composed by whom?

Mikhail Glinka's sketch became Russia's anthem in 1990; contests to give it words produced nothing that was adopted, and complaints about a song nobody could sing helped unseat it in 2000.

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

The Internationale, the anthem of the world workers' movement, had served since about 1918; in wartime the Kremlin wanted a song about the country itself rather than a movement, and ran a contest to find one.

The Soviet anthem went wordless until 1977 lyrics dropped which leader's name?

Joseph Stalin was praised by name in the 1944 text, so after his death the anthem was performed without words; Sergei Mikhalkov, co-author of the original, rewrote it in 1977 and kept Lenin.

What does Hatikvah, the title of Israel's national anthem, mean in English?

The Hope takes its title from Naftali Herz Imber's poem Tikvatenu; in 1888 Shmuel Cohen fitted the words to a folk tune he had probably known as a boy in Romania.

In Hatikvah, Israel's anthem, an eye still gazes toward where?

Zion is where the eye still gazes in the opening verse; the song was sung at Zionist congresses decades before Israel existed.

Which country's national anthem began as the theme song of a 1935 war film?

China's March of the Volunteers was the theme of Children of Troubled Times, a 1935 film about volunteers resisting invasion; the Communists made the film song their anthem on taking power in 1949.

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 Ninth Symphony's Ode to Joy theme was adopted by the Council of Europe in 1972 and the European Union in 1985; it has no official words, so that music is the one language every member shares.

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.

By what English name is the Welsh anthem, Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, usually known?

Land of My Fathers was written in 1856 by a Pontypridd father and son, Evan and James James, and first called Glan Rhondda; no law has ever made it official, yet it is sung as the anthem of Wales.

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

The All Blacks' haka was answered by the Welsh crowd singing its anthem, and Wales went on to win; it is counted as the first time a national anthem was sung before a sporting event.

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?

Bannockburn, where Robert the Bruce beat Edward II's army in 1314, is the song's subject, yet the song itself is modern: it was written in the 1960s and Scotland's rugby players first sang it in 1974.

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

Māori comes first by custom, followed by the same verse in English; the tune dates from an 1876 newspaper contest, which John Joseph Woods won with a melody he composed in a single sitting.

Which country's anthem was first played in 1898 as a wordless march, gaining Spanish lyrics a year later?

The Philippines first heard Julián Felipe's march as the flag was raised at the 1898 declaration of independence; José Palma's Spanish poem gave it words in 1899, and the Tagalog text sung today dates only from 1956.

Which country adopted Sayaun Thunga Phulka in 2007 as its monarchy was ending?

Nepal picked the song, whose title means hundreds of flowers, from 1,272 entries; its lyricist first had to prove he was no royalist, because he had once edited a book containing a poem by the king.

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

Nigeria, We Hail Thee, with words by British expatriate Lillian Jean Williams and music by Frances Benda, was dropped by the military government in 1978 and 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.

In which country do people in public stop and stand as the anthem plays at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.?

Thailand has broadcast its anthem twice a day since the late 1930s, timed to the raising and lowering of the flag, and people in streets, stations and parks are expected to stand until it ends.

Which small South American country has the world's longest national anthem by duration, at 105 bars?

Uruguay's anthem unfolds like a scene from Italian opera, the work of Hungarian-born bandmaster Francisco José Debali; only the first verse and the chorus are sung today, and it still runs about five minutes.

Which East African country's 1963 independence anthem borrows a lullaby sung by Pokomo mothers?

Kenya handed the job to a five-member commission and told it to build on traditional music, so that the result would sound unmistakably African.

Where is Perucho Figueredo said to have written the words of Cuba's anthem in 1868?

On the saddle of his horse, tradition says, as the jubilant crowd pressed him for words to the march it was humming; another account has him reciting verses he had written the year before.

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

His own blood, the story goes, because he had neither paper nor pen in Barberousse Prison in Algiers, where the French held him; the Egyptian composer Mohamed Fawzi later set the poem to music.

The music of the Vatican's Pontifical Anthem was written for a papal jubilee by which composer?

Charles Gounod wrote the Marche Pontificale for a jubilee of Pius IX, but it waited decades to become the papal anthem: only in 1949 did it replace a triumphal march by an Austrian army bandmaster.

Slovenia's anthem, Zdravljica, is a Prešeren poem with stanzas shaped like wine glasses, titled what in English?

A Toast was written in 1844 as a drinking song, but its politics kept it from print until the 1848 revolutions lifted Austrian censorship; today only its seventh stanza is the anthem.

Which country plays De Wilhelmus for its ruling family, beside its national anthem Ons Heemecht?

Luxembourg keeps De Wilhelmus for its grand ducal family; Ons Heemecht, the national anthem, was first sung in 1864 at Ettelbruck, where the two rivers named in its opening lines meet.

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

Edward VII told Elgar the trio would make a great song; A. C. Benson's words turned it into Land of Hope and Glory, and in the United States the same tune, without them, became the march of graduation ceremonies.

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

Malay is Singapore's designated national language, so only the original words may be sung; the English, Mandarin and Tamil versions are authorised translations, meant for understanding rather than singing.

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

Mozart got the credit because the tune was printed with his last Masonic cantata, yet it is missing from his own score; scholars now lean towards other Viennese composers, Johann Holzer among them.

Norway's anthem was first performed in 1864 during which annual national celebration?

Constitution Day, 17 May, was marking the constitution's fiftieth year; Rikard Nordraak set words by his cousin Bjørnson, who later organised children's parades for the day.

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

Arirang, sung on both sides of the border, stood in for both anthems in 2018; UNESCO has listed it twice as intangible heritage, for South Korea in 2012 and again for North Korea in 2014.

Sweden's anthem, Du gamla, du fria, vows to live and die where?

The North, Norden, is as close as the usual verses come to naming a country: they were written in 1844, when pan-Scandinavian feeling ran high, as a song to the whole region rather than to Sweden.

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

Spain was Blas Parera's homeland, so a Spaniard set the words that raged against Spanish rule; a presidential decree of 1900 cut the anthem to its first and last verses, leaving the fiercest lines unsung.

In 2021, Australia's anthem changed 'young and free' to what?

One and free took over on 1 January 2021, because 'young' ignored tens of thousands of years of Indigenous history; the song itself was written in 1878 by Scottish-born Peter Dodds McCormick.

God Save the King caught on during whose 1745 rising?

The Jacobites under Bonnie Prince Charlie had just beaten George II's army in Scotland when theatre audiences took up the song for their king; the rising was crushed the next year, and the song stayed.

Who chaired the committee that chose Malaya's national anthem in 1957?

Tunku Abdul Rahman, soon to be the first prime minister, turned down hundreds of contest entries before settling on Perak's anthem, a tune said to have reached its sultan's court from the Seychelles.

Majulah Singapura, the title of Singapore's national anthem, means what in English?

Onward Singapore began as Zubir Said's theme for the City Council, first performed at the Victoria Theatre in 1958; a year later the council song was the state anthem, and in 1965 a national one.

Which country's anthem began as a future president's ode to one of its Caribbean ports?

Colombia's anthem sets Rafael Núñez's ode to Cartagena; a Bogotá performer persuaded the Italian opera teacher Oreste Sindici to write the music, and it was first sung in November 1887.

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

Emperor Pedro I wrote the melody himself, to words by Evaristo da Veiga; after his abdication in 1831 a new march took over, and its tune is still Brazil's national anthem today.

Switzerland's anthem, the Swiss Psalm, has official words in German, French, Italian and which fourth language?

Romansh completes the set of Switzerland's four national languages; the tune began as church music, a psalm setting that monastery musician Alberich Zwyssig reworked in 1841 to fit a patriotic poem posted to him from Zurich.

Which president announced the 1853 contest that produced Mexico's national anthem?

Santa Anna announced the contest in 1853, and the winning anthem was first performed the following year; for all its use since, it was not made official by decree until 1943.

Under which ruler was a verse praising Chile's soldiers sung as part of the national anthem until 1990?

Augusto Pinochet's junta added an old verse saluting the army to the official anthem; opponents made a point of staying silent through it, and it was dropped when civilian rule returned in 1990.

Tanzania's anthem, Mungu ibariki Afrika, sets the tune of Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika to words in which language?

Swahili replaced Enoch Sontonga's original Xhosa when Tanganyika took the hymn as its anthem at independence in 1961; a group made the translation, so no single lyricist is credited.