Battles of Lexington and Concord - shot heard round the world
04/19/1775 AD defeated
The first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War.
The battles were fought in the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy (present-day Arlington), and Cambridge. They marked the outbreak of armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and its thirteen colonies in America.
About 700 British Army regulars in Boston, under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, were given secret orders to capture and destroy Colonial military supplies reportedly stored by the Massachusetts militia at Concord.
Through effective intelligence gathering, Patriot leaders had received word weeks before the expedition that their supplies might be at risk and had moved most of them to other locations. On the night before the battle, warning of the British expedition had been rapidly sent from Boston to militias in the area by several riders, including Paul Revere and Samuel Prescott, with information about British plans. The initial mode of the Army's arrival by water was signaled from the Old North Church in Boston to Charlestown using lanterns to communicate "one if by land, two if by sea".
Ralph Waldo Emerson describes the first shot fired by the Patriots at the North Bridge in his "Concord Hymn" as the "shot heard round the world"
Lattitude: 42.49° N
Longitude: 71.39° W
Region: North America
Modern Day United States
Subjects Who or What defeated?
Objects To Whom or What was defeated?
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England Nation
Attachments
Battles of Lexington and Concord Routes A National Park Service map showing the routes of the initial Patriot messengers and of the British expedition
Events in 1775 MORE
