What I am about to ask is very easy to answer if one uses a search engine, but I'm not looking for the answer to what the quotation means but rather to whether people know what the quotation means.

I'm also interested to learn whether there is a difference between how many Americans know it and how many non-Americans (non-USA) know it.

So without looking it up or using a search engine, can you simply off the top of your head identify in your mind the historical incident described and the larger body of work from which these words are taken.

If you know these two things, use a target 🎯 emoji to indicate that you do and are from the USA and if you do not know use a thinking 🤔 emoji to indicate that you do not know and that you are from the USA. If you know but are not from the USA and are not a USA resident or immigrant please indicate that you know by using a rocket 🚀. Finally, if you do not know and are not from the USA or a USA resident or a USA immigrant you may indicate this with a fist bump 👊.

Here is the quotation:

"On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes"

@StephenL and @Eddieb

You may have already looked it up but the words of the quotation posted yesterday are the beginning words of the USA National Anthem's second verse.

Many Americans are familiar with the words of the first verse but seem to have little or no understanding of the meaning of the words that they sing.

Francis Scott Key was being detained on board a British Warship during the war of 1812 between the UK and the USA because he had overheard the battle plans of the ship.

On the morning of the day after a bombardment of an American fort, Key was out on deck trying to see whether or not the fort had survived the bombardment. So he is on a foe's ship gazing towards the shore and through the mists that arose from the waters he can dimly see something moving.

A few hours earlier during the bombardment, it had been possible to see the USA flag that hung above the fort by the explosions of the bombardment "the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there."

But now the bombardment had ceased and it had been dark out before the dawn and Key was gazing through the dark to see what had happened. As he peered through the dark he began to see something moving in the wind and as the dawn got a little brighter he finally was able to identify that the object that he had seen moving in the wind was an American flag.