The Battles of Lexington and Concord began on April 19, 1775, marking the first major fighting of the American Revolutionary War.
British troops marched from Boston toward Concord to seize colonial military supplies. Patriot riders, including Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Samuel Prescott, helped spread the warning that regular soldiers were moving into the countryside.
The first clash occurred at Lexington, where a small Massachusetts militia company faced British troops. Fighting continued at Concord and along the British retreat to Boston, where colonial militia repeatedly attacked the column from behind walls, trees, and buildings.
The events are sometimes called the “shot heard round the world,” a phrase from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s later poem. The battle was not the war’s first act of resistance: tensions and violence had existed for years, including the Boston Massacre in 1770. The April 19 fighting turned the political crisis into open war.