The Star Spangled Banner over Fort McHenry
At around 6AM, 200 years ago today, the British Royal Navy began a fearsome bombardment of Fort McHenry at the mouth of Baltimore harbor. The British had attempted to take Baltimore by both land and sea. The British army attack stalled the day before, with the loss of Major General Robert Ross. As the British Army prepared a second attack on the American earthworks, the Royal Navy took its turn. Baltimore’s defenders had sunk 22 ships in the main channel. Any attempt to clear the channel would bring the British under the the guns of Fort McHenry and other American batteries.
After initial skirmishing, the Royal Navy anchored just out range of Fort McHenry’s guns and brought to bear the most advanced weaponry of their day. Five bomb ships; HMS Terror, HMS Volcano, HMS Meteor, HMS Devastation, and HMS Aetna; could each fire cast iron exploding shells weighing upwards of 200 pounds for a distance of two miles. HMS Erubus, a ship carrying Congreve rockets with a range almost as great as the mortars, fired their novel, if not very accurate rockets at the fort, as well. (The bomb ship, HMS Terror, would later serve in the ill-fated Franklin expedition. Her wreck may have recently been discovered. )
An international team of archaeologists and divers wearing an 
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Tuvalu
Yesterday, we posted about 
I recently learned about 