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Image 090420 Shot Heard Round The World Gallery 096 Moar Displays

April 19, 2020 marked the 245th anniversary of the first shot of the Revolutionary War – later called the “shot heard round the world” by American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson – at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts. 

Watch as Tyler Putman, the Museum's Gallery Interpretation Manager, commemorated the anniversary as he discussed Museum objects that were witness to the "shot heard round the world" and read an account of the encounter at Old North Bridge from Robert Gross's The Minutemen and Their World.

Learn more about the "shot heard round the world" by visiting the Museum’s Virtual Tour to explore the Lexington and Concord Gallery and learn about the artifacts from that day, including:

  • an original beam from the Old North Bridge, on loan from the Concord Museum
  • the gun carried by Captain David Brown, leader of a company of Concord minutemen, as he confronted a British force across the Old North Bridge
  • a British musket a soldier of the 4th (King's Own) Regiment of Foot
  • a mirror from Captain David Brown's house that was damaged by a British soldier on April 19, on loan from the Concord Museum;
  • a powder horn and sword carried by men who stood with Captain Brown to confront the British troops at the bridge, on loan from the Concord Museum.

The Museum also celebrated its third birthday on Sunday, April 19, 2020. Download recipes to learn how to make a celebratory 18th-century “Whisky Cake” or rum shrub cocktail (or mocktail).