Reasons Why the Star Spangled Banner Was Created

The Star Spangled Banner is one of the significant symbols for America. It has lyrics with deep meaning and good melody. It gives inspiration to its citizens, so they would be reminded to constantly give honor to their country. Before the Star Spangled Banner became the official national anthem of America, there were other songs that were considered nationalistic as well. Some of them are "My Country" and "Hail, Columbia". Some people wonder the answer to the question, why the national anthem written and we can only answer this by reviewing the background of America's history

1. The first answer to the question why was the anthem written is because of the need to honor the country by showing patriotism. Singing the anthem properly is one of the best ways to show patriotism. One of the main goals fulfilled by having an anthem is evoking in a person a sense of pride for the rich history of the country. It is usually played during holidays, festivals and before the start of sport events like baseball and basketball games. During Olympics, the first place winner's national anthem gets played during the ceremony for the awards.

2. The second answer to the question why was the anthem written is because of the need to pay the ultimate respect to the rich history of the United States. When the flag is raised, all the citizens looking at it should observe proper decorum. They should stand straight and give the proper attention. You should even salute, remove your cap or hat and put the right hand on your chest.

3. The third answer to the question why was the national anthem written is because it was signed as a resolution by President Herbert Hoover. This formal adaptation happened in 1931.

4. The fourth answer to the question why was the national anthem written was because it became popular in 1916 when the president of the United States began using it. John Stafford Smith created the melody in the eighteenth century. Francis Scott Key was the one who thought of the lyrics.

The national anthem has inspired other artists to create other songs like Janet Jackson who created a song entitled "Rhythm Nation 1814". Other filmmakers also added this song to their movies like "So Proudly We Hail", which was made in the nineties. Other movies which added the national anthem were "Naked Gun" and "The Sum of all Fears".

Please click these links if you want to know more about why the national anthem written or why were fireside chats important in general.

By Kenny Leones

Disease & Death Came to Plains Indians From Europeans in the 1830s-'40s

One of the earliest documented disease pandemics in the history of the American West took place when Anglo-European settlers moving westward during the 1830s and '40s brought diseases to the Native American ethnic groups (tribes) of the Great Plains.

From earliest contacts, cultural differences and battles over land use and ownership took place between European settlers and Native Americans as explorers, pioneers, and settlers expanded westward across the continent. But the first documented evidence of the devastation smallpox would have on tribal groups in this region dates back to the 1830s and '40s.

Historian Paul H. Carlson in his excellent textbook, "The Plains Indians," said this smallpox outbreak was traced to contact between deckhands in an American Fur Company steamboat moving up the Missouri River and members of several tribal groups living along that river, a major early trade and emigration route into the Plains and Upper Midwest. By 1837, Carlson said, thousands of Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa people had died. He suggested that as many as half of the Arikara and Hidatsa population of 4,500 died in this 1837 outbreak. In addition, he estimated this smallpox outbreak killed "virtually all" of the 1,600 Mandans living in the Upper Missouri River region.

Diseases that came from Europeans and wiped out villages and large numbers of Native Americans were nothing new elsewhere in America, even as early as the 1830s. Some historians suspect, in fact, that some of the early Puritans' stories of mysterious, empty villages with full food stores which they encountered upon landing in New England were signs of smallpox and other disease epidemics that preceded the Puritans. These historians theorize that the villages were probably empty because the native people had been exposed to various European diseases by fishermen and others who had come before the recorded visits of English settlers. The villages may have been empty because the Native American villagers saw the Europeans coming and were fleeing the risk of diseases. (Historians know from fragmentary accounts and sketchy maps that Portuguese explorers and fishermen were in North American waters decades before Plymouth Colony.)

Perhaps the credit more pious Puritan writers gave to God for miraculously providing them with food and shelter was due to far grimmer circumstances, i.e., sickness and disease that killed or drove away the Indians of New England.

Later on in the history of the settlement of the Old West, during the years known to many historians as "the Indian Wars," accounts reveal some of the more horrible, dark side of European contact with Native Americans -- cases when white people intentionally infected Indian villages with smallpox and other diseases by means of abandoned blankets and clothing. Those were dark times filled with dark deeds by Europeans and Native Americans alike.

But one of the earliest traceable outbreaks of smallpox among the Plains Indians tribal groups came from the American Fur Company boat venturing up the Missouri River in the mid-1830s.

You can find out more about disease Great Plains Indian groups' battles with deadly diseases at my website, "Life in the Old West," located at http://www.lifeintheoldwest.com.

By Gary Speer

What Were the Guys Who Did the Shooting Called in the Days of the Old West?

If you were living back in the days of the Old West -- what would you call the guys famous for quick draws and dead-eyed use of their pistols? Would they be gunfighters? Or gunmen? Perhaps "pistoleros," if you lived the southwestern part of the country?

Most sources I've read suggest that you probably wouldn't have called these folks "gunfighters" or "gunmen" -- at least not early on. Those terms were used in the later periods of Old Western history and lore, probably after the 1870s or '80s, for someone who was also known as a "shootist." You know the people I'm talking about I'm sure. In our post-Western movie times, these were the guys (almost always guys) who had the pistols and were not afraid or hesitant at all to use them.

The terms "gunfighter" and related words such as "gunslinger" or even just "gunmen" are part of the way popular writers throughout the years have romanticized the realities and distorted the events of life in the Old West. In fact, most people's lives were a mixture of daily boredom and sudden, unexpected violence -- with little of the heroic battles the dime novels and modern-day Westerns made it out to be.

According to one very useful resource on the history and language usage of the Old West, writer Winfred Blevins' fascinating "Dictionary of the American West," "gunfighter" and "gunmen" as well as "gunfight" and "gunfighting" all came along in the late 1800s -- and there was never any distinction made between "gunfighter" as the sort of good guy or "gunman" as the bad guy, which seems sometimes true in a lot of television and movie Westerns. And interestingly also, Blevins suggests that such terms almost always referred to pistols rather than long guns, that is, rifles.

(Another term made famous in modern television and film Westerns is "shooting iron" in reference to handguns. Unlike "gunfighter" and its variations, "shooting iron" is pretty ancient, being found in literature written as long ago as 1787, according to Blevins.)

Apparently, the first use of "gunman" in print was done by a man who once was a gunman. It was in a 1903 New York newspaper article written by Old West lawman-turned-newspaper-sports-writer Bat Masterson. He also used the term "gunfighter" in his writings about his personal work and career as a lawman. The related term "gunslinger" really doesn't rate as a true "Westernism," having come from early 20th-Century writers, picked up, and quickly popularized by early Western movie writers and early pop fiction.

Another interesting and archaic term about those guys who carried and used their pistols is "gunsman," which Blevins says goes back as early as the American Revolution -- and probably wasn't limited to handguns, but included muskets (the "rifles" of their day).

Guns and an entire culture surrounding them were crucial to the history of the Old West. They were used to sustain life on the Plains and in the mountains of the West as people used them to hunt food. And they were used to take life in all the Western warfare. Those terms we associate with cold, killer individuals who specialized in drawing their weapons to take lives hold a sort of romantic draw for fans of the Old West. We call them "gunfighters" or "gunmen" and either vilify or popularize them.

In reality, what we know about those men (and sometimes women) who used their handguns to shoot at other people has been mostly distorted and romanticized by the dime novelists and others who wanted to turn the boredom and sudden violence of life in the Old West to their own advantage. They wanted to gain readers and make a buck.

For more on what the guys with the pistols were called in the Old West and other features of life in the Old West, visit my website at http://www.lifeintheoldwest.com.

By Gary Speer

The Top Ten Reasons I Wish I Were Jewish

I have been a greeting card professional since 1987. And I have lived in New York since 1981. I have watched with intense interest all of the wonderful Jewish festivals and Hanukkah is really a HAPPY HOLIDAY!

So as my continued commitment to "Celebrate Life" I am celebrating my first Chanukah this year. I created a online Hanukiah (Hanukkah menorah) which lights a new candle ever evening at sundown EST and an interactive dreidel game in preparation for my celebration. I got a fistful of recipes for latkes!

As far as I can tell it is okay for this old shiksa and a goyim from the Midwest to celebrate Hanukkah, and the research for the music and the production of the Chanukah menorah and dreidel surprised me and delighted me. So I really do wish I were Jewish and love that all of my Jewish friends are thrilled to allow me to celebrate with them.

Happy Hanukkah, Chanukkah, Chanukah, and Hanukah. However you spell it, enjoy every second, hour and "crazy Eight days" of this wonderful festival of lights!

The Top Ten Reasons I wish I were Jewish

Reason #10: I love clarinet music.

Reason #9: I love potato pancakes.

Reason #8: I love the Three Stooges.

Reason #7: To be really funny it helps if you're Jewish.

Reason #6: Yiddish is a form of poetry.

Reason #5: Santa is Jewish. HOra HOra HOra

Reason #4: I love everything Matzo.

Reason #3: The Marx Brothers!

Reason #2: Did I say that to be funny it helps if you're Jewish?

and Reason #1: Hanukkah

Happy Hanukkah

Greetums are premium eCards made with loving care by a small team of writers, designers, artists, musicians, and actors lead by veteran greeting card designer Kat Caverly. Over 10 million greetings sold worldwide!

Kat Caverly is the Greetums lady and you can visit her at http://www.greetums.com

By Kat Caverly

The Top Ten Reasons I Wish I Were Jewish

I have been a greeting card professional since 1987. And I have lived in New York since 1981. I have watched with intense interest all of the wonderful Jewish festivals and Hanukkah is really a HAPPY HOLIDAY!

So as my continued commitment to "Celebrate Life" I am celebrating my first Chanukah this year. I created a online Hanukiah (Hanukkah menorah) which lights a new candle ever evening at sundown EST and an interactive dreidel game in preparation for my celebration. I got a fistful of recipes for latkes!

As far as I can tell it is okay for this old shiksa and a goyim from the Midwest to celebrate Hanukkah, and the research for the music and the production of the Chanukah menorah and dreidel surprised me and delighted me. So I really do wish I were Jewish and love that all of my Jewish friends are thrilled to allow me to celebrate with them.

Happy Hanukkah, Chanukkah, Chanukah, and Hanukah. However you spell it, enjoy every second, hour and "crazy Eight days" of this wonderful festival of lights!

The Top Ten Reasons I wish I were Jewish

Reason #10: I love clarinet music.

Reason #9: I love potato pancakes.

Reason #8: I love the Three Stooges.

Reason #7: To be really funny it helps if you're Jewish.

Reason #6: Yiddish is a form of poetry.

Reason #5: Santa is Jewish. HOra HOra HOra

Reason #4: I love everything Matzo.

Reason #3: The Marx Brothers!

Reason #2: Did I say that to be funny it helps if you're Jewish?

and Reason #1: Hanukkah

Happy Hanukkah

Greetums are premium eCards made with loving care by a small team of writers, designers, artists, musicians, and actors lead by veteran greeting card designer Kat Caverly. Over 10 million greetings sold worldwide!

Kat Caverly is the Greetums lady and you can visit her at http://www.greetums.com

By Kat Caverly

Breaking News, Emergency Meeting Called by the United Nations to Save Santa and His Cookie Addiction

With less than a week until Christmas the president of the UN, Ali Abdussalam Treki, has called an emergency session of the United Nations to meet this weekend in Hawaii. He is deploring all the leaders of the world to attend so that Christmas may be saved. He also noted that the weather this time of year on Oahu is just wonderful and the waves are breaking with some very nice tubes, in case any one wants to bring their surfboards.

The elves in the North Pole, at the Christmas complex, are starting to talk. One elf, Peter Pumpernickel, says they miss Santa tremendously and want him to come back. They have taken up a collection to help with the payback of the bailout money Santa has taken from the US government. They came up with $7.23. This does not seem like much, but they don't really make a lot of money as it is. They also say that when Santa returns to the North Pole he will be given all the support possible in order to kick his cookie addiction that put the First Bank of the North Pole into bankruptcy and led to this Christmas disaster.

The SCEP, Secret Cookie Elfin Project, is in talks with the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. It is thought that the talks are progressing well and the elves may lay down their candy canes and surrender to US forces any time now. This is great news and a major move forward in peace talks. The Christmas compound has been surrounded for the last week by US Marines. One marine, on condition of anonymity, says his troops just want to go home and celebrate Christmas with their family, but the President has asked them to do a job and they must obey orders.

Santa is still thought to be in the Cayman Islands in a rehabilitation clinic that specializes in food addictions. We got through to his counselor, who said Santa is progressing along nicely. He has been put on a diet of low fat cookies and 2% milk. Santa is stated as saying he is determined to get this cookie problem under control and have his finances in order before Christmas, so he does not let the children of the world down.

Just out, Barrack Obama, the President of the United States will be attending the emergency session of the United Nations in Hawaii. He says he thinks he has a creative idea on how this money can be paid back by Santa and a Christmas fiasco can be avoided.... More to come.

Most of my articles come from me and my wife's family site, http://sites.google.com/site/chrisandjoncook/. We are also developing a christian website, http://www.mybrosgotmyback.com. She grew up in Hawaii and I grew up in Connecticut. We are both Christians trying to raise a family with some sense of values, which is hard in these times. I have a daughter and a son from a previous marriage. My wife, Christine, is due in January 10' with my second daughter.

By Jonathan F Cook