:salute :patriotic-flagwaver :salute
On this day in 1775, the first shots of our War for Independence occurred. The British Army forces fired on Minutemen at Lexington and Concord.
Thus began the war that ended with our becoming an independent Republic.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote Concord Hymn in 1937 to commemorate the placing of an obelisk at at Concord to honor memorialize the battle.
The Concord Hymn
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1837)
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled;
Here once the embattled farmers stood;
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps,
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream that seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We place with joy a votive stone,
That memory may their deeds redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
O Thou who made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free, --
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raised to them and Thee.
:salute :patriotic-flagwaver :salute 
