Question about the Star Spangled Banner?

Is the line "The rockets Red Glare and bombs bursting in air" actually from the war of 1812 ?





I thought Rockets were not even invented (as weapons) until the 20th century.|||Rockets, as weapons, were invented by the Chinese back in ... when Marco Polo went to China in the late 1200s, he saw rockets being demonstrated. The British, especially, in the early 1800s, loved those rockets and used them regularly, including the Battle of New Orleans later in the war.|||They refer to “Congreve Rockets”.


War of 1812


During their confrontation with the US during the War of 1812, the British used rockets at the Battle of Bladensburg, which led to the burning and surrender of Washington, D.C..


It was the use of Congreve rockets by the British in the bombardment of Fort McHenry in the U.S. in 1814 that inspired the fifth line of the first verse of the United States National Anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner: "And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air".


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congreve_ro…