High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! A national anthem is a generally patriotic musical composition that evokes and eulogizes the history, traditions and struggles of its people, recognized either by a nation's government as the official national song, or by convention through use by the people. Anthems rose to prominence in Europe during the nineteenth century, but some are much older in origin; the oldest national anthem is "Het Wilhelmus", the Dutch national anthem, written between 1568 and 1572 during the Dutch Revolt. The Japanese anthem, "Kimi ga Yo", has its lyrics taken from a Heian period (794-1185) poem, yet it was not set to music until 1880.