The work was erroneously thought to be lost for over 100 years when a piano transcription[note 1] published in 1896 was found by a Library of Congress employee in 2003.

One year after the 1882 Transit of Venus, Sousa was commissioned to compose a processional for the unveiling of a bronze statue of American physicist Joseph Henry,[2] who had died in 1878.

[3] Henry, who had developed the first electric motor, was also the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.[4] A Freemason, Sousa was fascinated by what the group considered mystical qualities in otherwise natural phenomena.

At the same time, the moon, Uranus, and Virgo were rising in the east, Saturn had crossed the meridian, and Jupiter was directly overhead.

[1] The piece had been performed on compilation albums before then, but it was the 2004 transit that brought it to wide public attention.