The Emperor himself has been in exile on Elba for four months, though he will linger there for only five months more.
It’s also a time of some geopolitical import a continent away, the Congress of Vienna is gathering to reassemble Europe following the first wave of the Napoleonic Era. I’m Joe Janes of the University of Washington Information School, and it is September of 1814, Beethoven has premiered his Eighth Symphony, and Jane Austen has published Mansfield Park, anonymously. In the midst of an otherwise overlooked war, best known for actually ending before the decisive battle and for Dolley Madison saving George Washington’s portrait as the British burn the city bearing his name-in partial retaliation for the less-known abortive American invasion of Toronto-a day and a night of battle and uncertainty gave rise to one of the most recognizable songs in the world, which also tells us a story of quickly, and slowly, becoming. The backstory is well known too, though as is so often the case, not in detail and not always correctly. Almost every phrase has been repurposed you can easily imagine book titles like “The Rockets Red Glare,” and “The Dawn’s Early Light,” and you’d be right I found over 500 with that last one alone. I’d like to think I’m not alone it’s precisely because we’ve all heard it so many times that it’s become, for many, aural wallpaper, entirely familiar though rarely closely attended to. Am I the only one who didn’t really recognize that the Star-Spangled Banner asks a question? It finally, ahem, dawned on me when doing the research for this episode.
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