created by the cable tv industry and >> each week american artifacts takes viewers to museums and historic sites around the country. next we visit the smithsonian national museum of american history in washington d.c., for a tour of their center piece exhibit of the "the star-spangled banner." 2014 marks the 200th anniversary of the british naval come bardment of baltimore's fort mchenry during the war of 1812. the flying of the gary son flag the morning after the barrage inspired francis scott key to write the words that later became our national anthem.

>> during the war of 18 12eu9 was fought from 1812 until after 1814, early 185. it was about america reestablishing its independence against the british. >> in 1814 the city of washington was attacked and it was burned and mostly the federal buildings that were burned and also the newspapers. anything that was supporting the separation of the united states from britain. it said that you could actually see the fires in washington from the city of baltimore. this is one of our really iconic pieces in the collection. it a piece of the timber from the white house and you can see the charring on it. the troops left washington there was a two pronged attack

on baltimore, one was a land group coming up from washington and then there was the naval engagement coming up the chesapeake. what happened along the way is major ross who was commanding the land forces, was killed and that's what kept the land forces from landing in baltimore. but the attack happened. >> one of the things we like to remind our visitors of is that british were still fighting in europe. they were fighting napoleon, and they needed extra men. one of the things that was happening during the war 1812 that excited the americans to rise up against the british were american naval sea men were being captured and pressed into british naval service. a lot of those naval seamen were out of the baltimore harbor area. it was a major port of industry and export.

when the british did capture and burn washington, they really wanted to set an example for all of america. and not only were they burning our capital and our national buildings, but they wanted to put a stop to all americans thinking that they could push back against the british. so that's one of the reasons why baltimore was the center of where this battle would happen after washington. >> one of the british advantages in the battle of baltimore was the rocket they were fired from specially reenforced ships and had a much longer range tonight cannons. the cannons only had a range of about a mile. the rocket could do a two and a half mile. it wasn't very accurate, but it was still pretty terrifying when they were landing over you. >> when we thought about doing this exhibition one of the

things that we wanted people to understand was some of the bombardment, what was a come bardment -- bombardment. so we weren't sure that we had one of these rock it in our collection, so we did a search and found that we did have one but it was without the pole. so we had to make sure that it looked like what it would have looked like at the time of the war. so we added the pole. so that is an added piece. but the rocket itself is actually from that period. it doesn't look very foreboding, but when you hear it, we've recently been able to hear someone actually launch a congrieve rocket as a reenactment, they're frightening. it was more of a psychological weapon that could go go very far. it scream, it made a lot of noise, and it did have, you

could see the trajectory when we saw the reenactment you could actually see the flare of it as it traveled across the sky. >> you can imagine being at the fortification where these things were coming in and you're not very well protected except behind a wall. >> this is one of the british bombshells, basically an empty vessel filled with black powder and a fuse that would explode. and there's a story that one of these bombs actually landed in the powder magazine at fort mchenry. fortunately it did not explode otherwise we'd have a different story to tell today. they estimate between 1500 and 1800 shells landed on the fort. there's an account by a soldier at the fort who says they were like pinl uns tied at the ankles just waiting to be shot, there was nothing they could do.

the british just had to wait until the shelling was other. >> we have a piece of shrapnel that we're allowing our visitors to touch so you can see the thickness of the metal that would have exploded when that piece would have hit into the fortification itself. >> francis scott key was actually being held by the british. he had gone to negotiate the release of a dr. beans who was mayor of the local town. and the british troops said come into the, had come into the town when they were passing up towards baltimore from washington. as usually happens there was a few stragglers that stayed behind after the main troop left. and they were a little rowdy and they got arrested and because beans had promised neutrality to the british, they were offended that these soldiers were arrested. and they seized beans for violating the neutrality. the u.s. government hired francis scott key who was a

georgetown lawyer to go and negotiate his release. so he went out to meet the british troop to try and arrange this release of dr. beans, and while he was out there he saw the preparations being made for the attack on baltimore. because he saw the preparations he wasn't allowed to leave and that's why he was on the ship all through the engagement just waiting to see what the outcome of the battle would be. >> on the morning of september 14 francis scott key the bats had ensued, he was waiting to see from the fog and the smoke to see whether or not the fort had survived the bombardment and who was actually in charge. remember the land troops were coming even though they were stalled and they didn't have a commander any longer, there was a two-pronged approach. so did the fort fall to the british? or was the american going to

secure a victory? so by the dawn's early light, as francis scott key wrote, he was able to use a spy glass such as this to then peer over the water to see what flag would have been raised over the fort. and at that time he saw the star spangled banner or the garrison banner being raised the victory that they had survived the bombardment. so at that time he felt so moved to pen the beginnings of the words of a poem that he had a drinking tune in his mind that would allow him to make the rhymes, and as a lawyer he was a very eloquent writer but he was also known as a poet. so he wrote those words to the song, and it became our national anthem not until 1931. but it was being sung much earlier throughout the 19th

concern terrorism -- throughout the 19th century. >> we're standing behind the special chamber to house the "the star-spangled banner." the decision was made to always keep the flag available for any american citizen to see, so we had to create a special chamber and you'll notice it's very dark in here, that's because we keep the flag at about one foot candle that allows it to be on permanent exposition without doing damage from the light. we found that light was doing the most damage to flag when we did our research, so that was the focus in creating a new exhibition space. we also have the chamber very tightly controlled for temperature and humidity. and we keep it at a low oxygen level too, to extend the life of the flag. you'll notice a couple of featurethe flag. there is a hoist on the flag. it's unusual for this area of the flag to survive. this is the part that was attached to the flag pole. the plague pole at fort mchenry was about 930 feet

high, and there's still part of it that is buried at the fort. the far end of the flag is very damaged. it's because of the amount of wind damage. it's like a bill whip, the crack you hear with a bill whup. then it starts splitting along the seams. there is one area of the flag that probably isn't related to use. if you look in the blue area you'll see a slit that goes down into a white stripe. scott key, who was a historian found a single line note in a diary that said shell passed through flag at fort mchenry, and it's dated september 12, 1814. we think this is when the british were actually trying to get the range of their guns and that is probably the battle damage that we see on the flag, other than of course older

damage from the pleaded ordinance. we see a lot of care that was given to the flag over the years. there is 165 areas that were menned and we can tell they were done by different people because of the different skill levels. there's 37 patches in the flag. four of them were not from the flag but other areas they have been patched with remnants from the flag. we also see holes that have been cut in the flag as mementos were presented to people who who done service to the united states. the first piece we know that was removed was given to a widow of one of the soldiers who fought in the bats of baltimore. when her husband died she was given a piece to bury with her husband. the practice continued until the 1880's. we estimate over i'm we've lost about 20% of the flag and we've also gotten about 14 of those fragments back into the collection. >> one of the things that people don't know about the "the star-spangled banner" is that it was originally a 15-star

15-stripe flag. each star represented a new state, and they would add a stripe as well. the practice continued up until about 1820, 1819? >> 1818, i think. >> so people were like what do you mean 15 stripes and 15 stars? in fact there are only 14 stars left on this flag. one of the stars was cut away and we don't know where that one is. we believe it was souvenired and my such position -- supposition, as suzanne said there was a story about a piece being cut away for one of the defenders and put into his grave with him. soy believe that the star probably was cut away for maybe a major or an officer, one of the defenders and it was actually given to the family and it was laid to rest with the

defender in his grave. we have been able to secure some of the souvenirs, some of the pieces of the "the star-spangled banner" through donations as well as we did buy a piece at auction. but we're always interested in knowing more about who has pieces of the "the star-spangled banner." >> we began the conservation project in 1998 when we took the flag down from where it was hanging in flag hall, and the wall behind us is actually the location where the flag was hanging all those years. we moved it into a specially designed conservation area, where they worked until 2007. it's really too fragile now to hang the way it used to, so that's why this new chamber was built. but once we moved it into the chamber we knew we would have to continue maintaining the flag and examining the flag. so recently we entered the

chamber and jennifer and i spent two days looking at every square inch of the flag to see how it was aging to see if there had been any changes since we put it in the chamber and we're happy to report there hasn't been. >> it's been in looks oxygen exaimler and with the temperature and humidity controlled, part of the design of the exhibit and where the flag lays is a large table. when you see it on exhibition the flag is actually at a 10-degree angle. when we looked at the flag we had to crank the flag into a low position so s that the table would become flat. and there are no mechanical pieces in there. it is something that you have to hand crank down. we had never done it before. so when we got into the chamber we had to suit up into our tybak

suits, that's one of the things we require so that we don't bring in outside dirt and debris, because we don't want to introduce outside and foreign materials into the flag itself. and so that there are no bugs or pests to eat things on us. because we keep the chamber in a low oxygen state, it's hard to work there, so we did bring the oxygen legal up a bit so we could work for longer periods of time and that was also new. because we hadn't worked in the space for long periods of time we didn't have to do that kind of thing before. so this was testing all of our systems. not only was it testing the table to see how long it would take for us to manually crank it into a flat position which took about an hour and a half, and a lot of sweat. but it also, we also have a

gantry, it like a moving walkway that slides out and we have to push out over the flag and then there are a crank system, which suzanne and i were on top of the gantry and we had to crank it forward in small increments. sites a lot of work to the examination. we spent two days in there and we were happy to report that all of the flag looked to be in wonderful condition. it seemed to be very happy in its chamber. it has relaxed from all of the stitches that were taken out of it over the period of the conservation project. how many stitches did you have to take out? >> we estimate that amelia fowler when she first preserved it put about 17.000000 stitches in, each one had to be put in one at a time clipped and removed from the flag much we

had a structural engineer discuss with us how many stitches were necessary and he thought maybe one in 1,000 were necessary. so if you notice today there's a lot less stitching on the flag, which lets you appreciate what's left of the flag in much greater detail. there's been 200 years of caring for this flag since it was first made in 1813 and all of that shows on the surface of the flag. >> it was a truly unique experience while we were conserving the flag because it was on public view the whole time. visitors were invited to come and watch us work. it was a very gratifying experience too because what we found is almost everybody who came to the museum did want -- didn't want to see the flag, didn't want to see us work, on the flag. there were a lot of heart warming moments along the buy. one day a family of three generations came in. the older gentleman looked to be about a world war ii generation age, and as we were working we all looked up and he saluted us.

and those are the kinds of things when your back is aching and your knees are aching and you think you can't remove one more stitch, you know you can do it because of the appreciation of the american public for the work you do. we're standing in front of a projection table that actually shows the full size image of the flag. and this was designed so people could examine the flag up close and see the changes that have happened to the flag and also the conservation work that was done to preserve it. you'll notice there's some black disks on the surface and those are hot spots. so if you put your hand on them you'll call up extra information. there's 150 different areas of extra information about the flag, talking about the conservation process, the history of the flag, the changes that have happened to the flag other time. and pause this image moves on the table we orient people with a little square that shows you

where you are actually looking at on the flag. it's one of the ways of allowing people to see the flag in more detail than we can allow because of the low light conditions in the chamber. we're standing in front of a section of the exhibit that talks about making the flag much at the time a lot of the flag makers were women. mary was a second generation flag maker, her mother was rebecca young and she made flags for george washington. what you see also is a display of the typical tools at the time that would have been used for making the flag. we include a little disk of pins. pins were extremely expensive item at the time. and actually would have been a very precious gift if a man was giving it to his girlfriend. we also have a graphic behind me that shows the size of the "the star-spangled banner" when it was made and the size of the footprint of mary's house.

it was a relatively small house. the flag was actually bigger than the house. so all those wonderful paintings of women sitting with 40-foot flags in their lap making the flags didn't happen that way. the flag actually had to be taken over to the brewery, they bored -- borrowed a room in the attic to do the final piecing. the nag was probably made in three sections and then the three sections pieced together much we know mary worked on the flag. we know her caroline worked on the flag. she also had two piece nieces that were helping and a servant who was in service to learn how to sew. so we believe she also was working on the flag. we don't know if rebecca young was working on the flag, but we assume she was probably providing guidance to her daughter on this very important commission. the flag was made in 1813 in

baltimore. at the time baltimore was already under a blockade, it was very hard to get materials. and when you look at the flag you can see the number of seams that are in each of the stripes you can see the number of piece thanks were done to the stars to create enough fabric to be able to create this enormous sized flag. >> when mary received this commission she was paid $405 for this flag. that is a massive amount of money for anyone in 1813. so the amount of money also helped her purchase much of the wool that needed to come to be made for this flag. most of the wool came from britain, i believe. and so you have to think about okay, we're using british wool for an american flag, and yet we're blockaded by the british and we're at war with britain. >> this is, mary was a much

younger woman when she made the flag. but the photo image we have is a sketch that's hanging in her home outside of baltimore. and mary pickerskill wasn't just a flag maker and competent business woman, she was also a philanthropist and she said up a home for indigent needle works so that when they were too old to earn a living they still had a place to live. jennifer talked about the $405 for the flag. just as a comparison, economists have estimated that mary pickerskill's house probably cost $1500. so she was paid a third of the cost of her house for making one flag. george arm istead was at fort hk henry. it had previously been under the command of sam smith. so when george armisad came to the fort he wanted a very large flag made

for the fort. what you see below his portrait is a punch bowl set, in the shape of one of those 13-inch bombs, and it has a dedication to the grateful citizens of baltimore. >> his daughter was who inherited the flag. she was one of the guardians of this flag. one of the things we like to point out is that without the family understanding and valuing this flag so much, even though they souvenired it, they would cut pieces off, they cared for it greatly. and so without the family having valued it so dearly it may not exist today. >> the next image we have here is the first photograph we actually have of the flag, in 1870's admiral prebel was writing a book on the flag and

he said no one knew where the "the star-spangled banner" was and she contacted him and said i have it. he borrowed it and took this photo. he wanted to stitch to it canvas and fly it from a flag pole. i think you can see from the photograph how seriously damaged the flag was even in the 1870's. he was the man who donated the flag to the smithsonian and there's a wonderful anecdote that we have not been able to support with written documentation. but evan was a reclues and he had people pestering him all the time to borrow the flag for all kind of occasions and at one point citizens from baltimore were supposed to come up to new york to visit him to ask for the flag. and he said no. and they adjourned, to the nearest pub to discuss what they should do next. and apparently about 2:30 in the morning they had made their decision and there decision was

to go back to the house and demand the flag. he didn't take kindly to that and that was one of the things that prompted him to start looking for a new home for the flag. somebody who could care for the flag. he began talking to the undersecretary and secretary of the smithsonian and through one of his friends and that's when the decision was made to send the flag to the smithsonian in 1907. then in 1912, after all the plans were being made to conserve the flag for the first time using mrs. fowler's method, he decided he should make it a gift to the nation. we talked earlier about how the armisad family, the appleton family and later prebel who was writing his book would start to souvenir parts of the flag. this is one of those pieces and we count this as three fragments because there's a fragment of red, a fragment of white and a fragment of blue and they have

been stitched together. but we want feel to be able to get a little closer to the object and this is one way we can offer them to look at the fragility of the material and to see the loose weave of the flag. >> what you see in the case here is canvas duffle, and it was probably a typical duffle bag. this is how it would have been typically stored at the fort, it would have been stored in a duffle and the duffle probably would have been put into a foot locker. as we move down the exhibition, we show a history of the exhibition of the flag from different time periods. you saw the first ever photograph of the flag from 1837 when george prebel hung and it that was in boston. then you see the first photograph of the smithsonian receiving it in 1907 and hanging it on the outside of the darts

and industry building or the smithsonian castle. you see the image in 1995 that the flag was made to look whole and restored. and there was a whole bottom section that was reconstructed. when the flag was moved into the new exhibition space there was a deliberate decision by the curators not to do that again. and what we wanted was that the flag becomes a metaphor for the country. it's tattered, it's torn, but it still survives and the message is really the survival of both the country and the flag. and we're not trying to make it look pretty. we're trying to make it look like it's endured its history and it still can celebrate its history. >> as we move down the exhibition, we try and bring the flag together with our national anthem. most people don't realize this was the actual flag that flew over fort mchenry and inspired francis scott key to write the words that later became our

national anthem. so we talk about francis scott key, we have a copy of the manuscript. and we talk about how key's anthem or his song became popular in the 19th century, as a song that became popular during the civil war again in the early 1900's, but was mad made our national anthem until 1931. you can see a lot of information here, a lot of graphics about how the national anthem is something that everyone is familiar with. all americans are familiar with it. and most people in the world are familiar with america's flag as a symbol, as well as our national anthem. at the end we talk about the legacy of the "the star-spangled banner" and how not only is the flag a national treasure, but our song is very important us to as americans. and how it has become one of the most significant symbols in american history.

what people don't always understand is that the flag that they salute today, what its origins were, and why when we salute that flag and sing our national anthem those two have come together in history during the war of 1812. so hopefully when you come to visit the smithsonian or you come to see this exhibition you get a broader understanding of our national history. and the flag that inspired our national anthem. >> next, author james swanson discusses the warren commission, which was established in november 1963, to investigate the assassination of president john f. kennedy. mr. swanson describes the formation, goals and legacy of

the investigation, and details the role of chief justice early warren. this program was posted by the supreme court historical society. it's about an hour. >> welcome to the supreme court we're delighted to have you here and thank you to the supreme court historical society, the host of this evening's program. i want to say a word about the society's work. it engages its members including me, with educational programs such as tonight's event, as well as the annual