Shot Heard Round the World
Lifted from the opening stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1837 poem entitled “Concord Hymn,” the shot heard round the world is a phrase that refers to the opening exchanges during the battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19th, 1775, which set off the American Revolution and ultimately led to the creation of the United States of America.
Emerson’s phrase set off years of open debate between the Massachusetts towns where the battles unfolded, both towns maintaining that the first shot of the Revolutionary War happened directly in their backyard.
Where Was the Shot Heard Round the World?
While the first shots were fired early on April 19th at the battle of Lexington, taking the lives of eight patriots and wounding one British soldier, the events at Lexington remain confused and contradictory at best.
The North Bridge skirmish at Concord, however, saw the first shots fired by Americans acting under orders, resulting in the first British fatalities and the first British retreat. When the Marquis de Lafayette visited the two towns in 1824, Lexington civic leaders welcomed him to the “birthplace of American liberty,” while leaders in Concord called their town the place of “first forcible resistance” to British overrule.
President Ulysses S. Grant considered avoiding the 1875 centennial celebrations in the area to evade the issue, and while he ultimately attended, the debate simmers on in the region, even to this day.
The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
The phrase “shot heard round the world” has also attached itself to the Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28th, 1914, which has long been considered the most immediate ignition point responsible for World War One.
Inspired by a Serbian military conspiracy, Serbian Gavrilo Princip was one of six assassins gunning for Ferdinand that day, firing two shots into the limousine carrying the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Both the Archduke and his wife Sophie were murdered, triggering an avalanche of military alliances between countries that escalated into the war to end all wars.