PJ The Belt - July 04, 2026


Canadian REACTS to Emotional Star Spangled Banner As You've Never Heard It

Mentioned
Francis Scott Key George Washington Incredible Blessed
Trump Just Offered Alberta a DEAL!! as Canada FAILS to deliver Alberta CAUGHT BETRAYING The USA — Smith Shows Her True Colors..

Episode Stats


Length

12 minutes

Words per minute

142.76

Word count

1,731

Sentence count

48

Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

On this day in 1812, a man named Francis Scott Key negotiated a deal with the British to release American prisoners held captive in the aftermath of the War of 1812. The deal was for prisoners to be exchanged on a one-for-one basis.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Well, hello America! Happy 250th birthday. Look at you all grown up. 250 years. 250 glorious years of defying odds.
00:00:13.140 I mean, you literally started as a country by fighting the most powerful empire the world had ever seen at the time.
00:00:21.760 the British Empire. Just a bunch of regular men with big hearts, brave hearts, who are tired
00:00:31.100 of taxation without representation. Your fight has inspired millions of people and you created
00:00:40.760 the most powerful, most influential, most significant civilization the world has ever
00:00:47.680 seen. From putting men on the moon to inventing pretty much everything from the light bulb to
00:00:54.880 vehicles to the airplane to everything else. Americans should be proud. Americans better be
00:01:02.860 proud of their country because there's no other country like it. I'm sure some of you have already
00:01:07.560 watched this video before but I think it's important to revisit it especially given the
00:01:11.880 fact that the United States is celebrating its 250th birthday. Just to look at the sacrifices
00:01:17.280 that American patriots had to go through to secure the freedoms that Americans and much
00:01:23.580 of the Western world enjoy today. This video is based on the events that took place in 1812,
00:01:31.680 the War of 1812 between the United States and British forces. Let's watch.
00:01:47.280 that i'm sure you're aware of you've seen it it's in most hymnals throughout our churches it's called
00:01:51.360 the national anthem it is our song as an american stand in our church services and we sing the words
00:01:57.760 of that song and they float over our minds and our lips and we don't even realize what we're
00:02:01.920 singing most of us have memorized it as a child but we've never really thought about what it means
00:02:06.640 let me tell you a story francis scott key was a lawyer in baltimore the colonies were engaged in
00:02:14.880 vicious conflict with the mother country britain that's when uh the british british army based out
00:02:22.580 of canada british north america at the time because canada didn't exist as a country until
00:02:26.920 1867 so it was called british north america british forces actually burnt the white house
00:02:32.560 at that time the war of 1812 because of this conflict and the protractedness of it they had
00:02:38.040 accumulated prisoners on both sides the american colonies had prisoners and the british had
00:02:42.500 prisoners. And the American government initiated a move. They went to the British and they
00:02:46.820 said, let us negotiate for the release of these prisoners. They said, we want to send
00:02:53.360 a man out to discuss this with you. They were holding the American prisoners in boats about
00:02:58.080 a thousand yards offshore. And they said, we want to send a man by the name of Francis
00:03:02.580 Scott Key. He will come out and negotiate to see if we can make a mutual exchange. On
00:03:08.580 the appointed day in a rowboat, he went out to this boat and he negotiated with the British
00:03:12.260 officials and they reached a conclusion that men could be exchanged on a one-for-one basis
00:03:17.780 so i suppose francis scott key was like the diplomat like the mediator in this particular
00:03:23.760 conflict francis scott key jubilant with the fact that he'd been successful went down below
00:03:29.480 in the boats and what he found was a cargo hold full of humanity men and he said men i've got
00:03:36.260 news for you tonight you're free he said tonight i have negotiated successfully your return to the
00:03:43.540 colonies he said you'll be taken out of this boat out of this spilt out of your chains
00:03:49.460 as he went back up on board to arrange for their passage to the shore the admiral came
00:03:53.140 and he said we have a slight problem he said we will still honor our commitment to release
00:03:58.500 these men but it'll be merely academic after tonight it won't matter oh boy and francis
00:04:05.140 Scott Key said what do you mean he said well Mr. Key he said tonight we have laid an ultimatum
00:04:13.380 upon the colonies your people will either capitulate and lay down the colors of that flag
00:04:20.100 that you think so much of or you see that fort right over there Fort Henry he said we're going
00:04:25.860 to remove it from the face of the earth oh boy he said how are you going to do that he said if you
00:04:32.340 will scan the horizon of the sea and as he looked he could see hundreds of little dots
00:04:39.380 and he said that's the entire british war fleet you gotta remember that at the time the united
00:04:45.540 states wasn't the most powerful navy or the most powerful military in the world they were not in
00:04:50.820 1812 the united states was less than 50 years old as a country so it was it was still developing as
00:04:57.860 a country in the world the british were literally the most powerful empire at the time which goes
00:05:04.740 to show just how crazy the 1776 revolution was the fact that the united states was able to withstand
00:05:11.540 and not only withstand defeat the british forces all of the gun power all of the armament is being
00:05:17.780 called upon to demolish that fort it will be here within striking distance in a matter of about two
00:05:24.020 and a half hours he said the war is over these men would be free anyway yikes he said you can't
00:05:30.260 show that for it he said that's that's a large fort he said it's full of women and children
00:05:36.580 he says it's predominantly not a military fort he said don't worry about it they said we've left
00:05:44.580 them a way out he said what's that he said do you see that flag way up on the rampart
00:05:50.420 he said we have told them that if they will lower that flag the shelling will stop immediately
00:05:57.980 lower the flag and we'll know that they've surrendered and you'll now be under british
00:06:03.380 rule francis scott key went down below and told the men what was about to happen
00:06:10.700 and they said how many ships he said hundreds
00:06:14.720 hundreds the ships got closer francisco he went back up on top and he said men i'll shout down
00:06:21.040 to you what's going on as we watch as twilight began to fall and as the haze hung over the ocean
00:06:29.180 as it does at sunset suddenly the british war fleet unleashed imagine that picture hundreds
00:06:37.220 and hundreds of ships threatening to destroy the fort that was full of women and kids
00:06:44.840 just so that you put the flag down just so that they lowered that flag that was their demand
00:06:52.160 lower the flag the american flag and they refused how many people have that courage today how many
00:07:01.380 people would have that bravery, that heart, to love the flag that much. That's why there are
00:07:09.300 people out there who just can't stand to see individuals disrespecting the American flag,
00:07:16.860 stepping on it, burning it, not standing for the anthem, etc.
00:07:23.600 He says the sound was deafening. There were so many guns that there were no reliefs. He said it
00:07:29.260 it was absolutely impossible to talk or hear he said suddenly the sky although dark was suddenly
00:07:33.640 lit imagine that and he says from down below all he could hear the men the prisoners saying was
00:07:39.300 tell us where the flag is what have they done with the flag
00:07:44.920 is the flag still flying over the rampart tell us
00:07:49.900 one hour two hours three hours into the shelling
00:07:55.300 every time the bomb would explode and it would be close to the flag
00:08:01.240 they could see the flag and the illuminated red glare of that bomb
00:08:05.140 and francis scott key would report down to the men below it's still up
00:08:08.940 the rocket's red glare it's not down 0.86
00:08:11.500 the admiral came and he said your people are insane he said what's the matter with them
00:08:19.220 brave he said don't they understand this is an impossible situation
00:08:23.800 francis scott key said he remembered what george washington had said he said the thing that sets
00:08:30.280 the american christian apart from all other people in the world is he will die on his feet before
00:08:36.520 he'll live on his knees the admiral said we have now instructed all of the guns to focus on the
00:08:46.280 rampart to take that flag down they're going for it he said we don't understand something
00:08:50.700 our reconnaissance tells us that that flag has been hit directly again and again and again and
00:08:56.200 yet it's still flying we don't understand that but he said now we're about to bring every gun
00:09:02.800 for the next three hours to bear on that point francis scott he said the barrage was unmerciful
00:09:07.940 Wow.
00:09:37.940 completely nondescript in shreds the flag was flying hold itself was at a crazy angle
00:09:44.620 the flag was still at the top francis scott key went aboard and immediately went into fort henry
00:09:54.440 to see what had happened and what he found had happened was that that flagpole and that flag
00:10:02.080 had suffered repetitious direct hits, and when hit had fallen. But men, fathers, who
00:10:14.080 knew what it meant for that flag to be on the ground, although knowing that all of the
00:10:21.780 British guns were trained on it, walked over and held it up humanly until they died.
00:10:29.720 The ultimate sacrifice for the flag.
00:10:32.160 Their bodies were removed and others took their place.
00:10:36.800 Francis Scott Key said what held that flagpole in place at that unusual angle were Patriots' bodies.
00:10:44.120 Wow.
00:10:45.840 He penned the song,
00:10:48.560 Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light
00:10:52.280 what so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming.
00:10:59.720 Or the rocket's red glare the bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night
00:11:07.060 That the flag was still there
00:11:12.380 Incredible. Oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave or the land of the free
00:11:20.160 and the home of the brave.
00:11:23.780 Brave indeed.
00:11:24.980 The debt was demanded.
00:11:27.640 The price, it was paid.
00:11:31.560 Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.
00:11:35.460 Amen.
00:11:36.500 Again, that anthem, the Star Spangled Banner,
00:11:38.920 tells the story.
00:11:40.900 It's one of those anthems that tells the story.
00:11:44.460 It's not just about words that sound good put together
00:11:48.780 or good sounding music, it's a story of a battle and a perseverance, a legendary perseverance
00:11:57.200 against all odds. Americans should be proud. You guys should be very proud. Happy 250th birthday,
00:12:04.940 America, to 250 more.