More from Fort McHenry

What an incredible place this is.  Stu and were really impressed with this. There's a ten minute movie about the battle. After it's over the movie screen rises up into the ceiling. There are several huge windows behind the screen and the view out those windows is the fort. Really fantastic.

Here are a few pictures of the fort.

These two pictures show the major battle that were fought in the War of 1812 around Washington and Baltimore.

Here's a little more about the Ft. McHenry leading up to the War of 1812:

Fort McHenry was built on the site of the former Fort Whetstone, which had defended Baltimore from 1776 to 1797. Fort Whetstone stood on Whetstone Point (today's residential and industrial area of Locust Point) peninsula, which juts into the opening of Baltimore Harbor between the Basin (today's Inner Harbor) and Northwest branch on the north side and the Middle and Ferry (now Southern) branches of the Patapsco River on the south side.

The Frenchman Jean Foncin designed the fort in 1798,[3] and it was built between 1798 and 1800. The new fort's purpose was to improve the defenses of the increasingly important Port of Baltimore from future enemy attacks.

The new fort was constructed in the form of a five-pointed star surrounded by a dry moat — a deep, broad trench. The moat would serve as a shelter from which infantry might defend the fort from a land attack. In case of such an attack on this first line of defense, each point, or bastion could provide a crossfire of cannon and small arms fire.

Fort McHenry was named after early American statesman James McHenry (16 November 1753 – 3 May 1816), a Scots-Irish immigrant and surgeon-soldier. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress from Maryland and a signer of the United States Constitution. Afterwards, he was appointed United States Secretary of War (1796–1800), serving under presidents Presidents George Washington and John Adams.