<Li> 1787 Captain Robert Gray carries the flag around the world on his sailing vessel (around the tip of South America, to China, and beyond). </Li> <Li> 1795 Flag with 15 stars and 15 stripes designed - often with unique red stripe under the blue field / canton (added Vermont, Kentucky to the original Thirteen Colonies stars) </Li> <Li> 1814 September 14--Francis Scott Key writes the four stanza poem "The Star - Spangled Banner". It officially becomes the U.S.A. national anthem in 1931 . The unique 15 - star, 15 - stripe design with a red stripe under the blue canton with stars (used 1795 - 1818) of the huge flag made by Mary Young Pickersgill later seen by Key flying over Fort McHenry outside Baltimore in September 1814 during the Battle of Baltimore in a British land / sea attack becomes known as the "Star Spangled Banner Flag". </Li> <Li> 1818 Flag with 20 stars and returned to the 13 stripes design of alternating red and white colors of 1777 . It remains at 13 stripes hereafter to the present with only stars added for additional states admitted to the Union, on next following Independence Day, Fourth of July . (Tennessee (1796), Ohio (1803), Louisiana (1812), Indiana (1816), Mississippi (1817) added from previous years). </Li>

When did the star spangled banner offically become the national anthem