Ongoing History Daily: Salvation/Seven Nation Army

We’ve all seen the Salvation Army kettles throughout the Christmas season—and you have donated, haven’t you?—but did you know that that organization is directly responsible for one of the biggest sports anthems in the history of the planet?

When Jack White was a kid—the tenth in a large Catholic family and a good altar boy—he always came into contact with charitable giving as part of the family’s routine. One day, he was introduced to the Salvation Army campaign. But he misheard the name of the organization. He thought it was “Seven Nation Army.” That all got sorted out later, of course, but he remembered his mistake and later used it for the name of a song.