December 1, 1906: "Anchors Aweigh" Is First Played

The original sheet music, with a photo of Zimmerman

December 1, 1906: The Army-Navy football game is played, at the original Franklin Field in Philadelphia. Navy win, 10-0. As their team took the field before the game, the Navy's marching band played a new song: "Anchors Aweigh."

The music was composed by Charles A. Zimmerman, who served as the bandmaster at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland from 1887 until his death in 1916. (It was from a brain hemorrhage, not due to military service.) In 1902, he had composed the music for a stage play version of The Wizard of Oz.

The lyrics were written by Alfred Hart Myles, then a Midshipman First Class (equivalent to a college senior), and it was his idea to write a fight song for the football team. He asked Zimmerman to compose the music.

"Weigh anchor" is an old English sailors' expression, an order that a ship's anchors be raised. In response to the order, the phrase "anchors aweigh" reports back that all anchors are clear of the sea bottom; therefore the ship is officially under way.

"Anchors aweigh," both in general and in writing the title of the song, is often misspelled as "Anchor's away," leading to confusing the terms, and sometimes misunderstanding the order as meaning "to drop anchor."

While "Anchors Aweigh" is the official fight song of the Naval Academy's football team, it is only through informal adoption that it is associated with the U.S. Navy as a whole. Despite proposals, it has never been made the branch's official song.

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December 1, 1906: was a Saturday. Baseball was out of season. Basketball barely existed. Hockey was still mostly amateur. In English soccer, Woolwich Arsenal, the South-East London team that would eventually becomes Arsenal F.C., the North London team I would one day support, traveled to the North-East of England, and lost to Sunderland, 1-0 at Roker Park in Sunderland.