Rocket's Red Glare

It turns out that one famous phrase from America's National Anthem has its roots in India.

After the American Revolution, the British turned their attention toward expanding their influence in India. In 1780 British troops invaded Mysore, an area then ruled by Hyder Ali. What the British did not know was that Hyder had been working on a new rocket.

Whereas previous rockets had been small and less effective. Hyder's new rockets had metal tubes, were 12 lbs each, and had 10 foot bamboo poles for stability. This gave them much more range - they could fly at least half a mile. Moreover, Hyder had the manpower to produce and launch hundreds of them at at time. Using his barrage of rockets, Hyder was able to repulse the British invasion of his territory.

In the wake of their defeat, the British redoubled their research into rocket technology such that by the time of the War of 1812 - they were a widely used part of the British Arsenal. Some of those rockets were the ones that Francis Scott Key saw outside Fort McHenry when he saw "the rocket's red glare" and that "our flag was still there."