MOMENTS IN TIME

The History Channel

• On Sept. 13, 1814, Francis Scott Key pens a poem, which is later set to the music of a popular English drinking tune called “To Anacreon in Heaven.” In 1931 the song becomes America’s national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

• On Sept. 10, 1897, a 25-year-old London taxi driver named George Smith becomes the first person ever arrested for drunk driving. A true breath test didn’t come along until 1931 with a device called the Drunkometer. It involved a blow-up balloon and a tube filled with a purple fluid (potassium permanganate and sulfuric acid). Alcohol on a person’...