Scholars debate whether the American national anthem was
composed on a ship built in India at the Wadia Shipyard
Farok J. Contractor
On Flag Day (June 14) and Independence Day (July 4) each year patriotic Americans will climb to the second floor of a nondescript building on the Mall in Washington, DC, and enter a dimly lit, cavernous room to stand before the most sacred item in the National Museum of American History: the Star-Spangled Banner. The fragile flag, bearing 15 stars and 15 stripes (for the 13 colonies plus Vermont and Kentucky, which later joined the union), is today only a faded and tattered remnant of the 1814 original. But it is one of the holiest icons of American life.
During the......