During the War of 1812, Fort McHenry was bombarded by a British fleet, an attack that inspired Francis Scott Key to write The Star Spangled Banner. Key was a prisoner aboard a British ship. Fort McHenry was an American military installation built on a peninsula in Baltimore Harbor in 1799. It later was used as a storage depot and military prison. It was established as a national park in 1925, and was re-designated a national monument and historic shrine in 1939.