Fox News is at it again -- attacking Bill Press over his comments on the "Star Spangled Banner"

[DreamGypsy]

31. The Star Spangled Banner commemorates a dispute over empire

The Star Spangled banner was written in 1814 during the War 0f 18112, after the battle of Battle of Fort McHenry. The ambitions of the United States in that war were not for independence, but for empire.

From Wikipedia (emphasis mine):

The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions brought about by Britain's ongoing war with France, the impressment of American merchant sailors into the Royal Navy, British support of American Indian tribes against American expansion, outrage over insults to national honour after humiliations on the high seas and possible American desire to annex Canada.[3] Tied down in Europe until 1814, the British at first used defensive strategy, repelling multiple American invasions of the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada. However, the Americans gained control over Lake Erie in 1813, seized parts of western Ontario, and ended the prospect of an Indian confederacy and an independent Indian state in the Midwest under British sponsorship. In the Southwest, General Andrew Jackson destroyed the military strength of the Creek nation at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814. With the defeat of Napoleon in 1814, the British adopted a more aggressive strategy, sending in three large invasion armies. The British victory at the Battle of Bladensburg in August 1814 allowed them to capture and burn Washington, D.C. American victories in September 1814 and January 1815 repulsed all three British invasions in New York, Baltimore and New Orleans.

This war was a battle of two major nations to maintain or extend their empires. A side effect of the war was allowing the United States to begin westward expansion in earnest, displacing Native Americans.

Again from Wikipedia:

Historians generally agree that the real losers of the War of 1812 were the Indians (called "First Nations" in Canada). American settlers into the Middle West had been repeatedly blocked and threatened by Indian raids before 1812, and that now came to an end. Throughout the war the British had played on terror of the tomahawks and scalping knives of their Indian allies; it worked especially at Hull's surrender at Detroit. By 1813 Americans had killed Tecumseh and broken his coalition of tribes. Jackson then defeated the enemy Indians in the Southwest. At the peace conference the British demanded an independent Indian state in the Midwest, but by late 1814 the British-Indian alliance had been defeated militarily and the British had to abandon the demand. The withdrawal of British protection gave the Americans a free hand, which resulted in the removal of most of the tribes to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). In that sense according to historian Alan Taylor, the final victory at New Orleans had "enduring and massive consequences." It gave the Americans "continental predominance" while it left the Indians dispossessed, powerless, and vulnerable.

This chapter of my country's history is not one in which I take pride.