CNN
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Nearly 250 years ago, British soldiers marched in search of military supplies stored by colonial rebels in Massachusetts. Tensions escalated into bloodshed as fighting broke out in the towns of Lexington and Concord, sparking the Revolutionary War.
The fighting in Concord on April 19, 1775 was immortalized by the legendary essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson with the title “The Shot That Went Around the World.”
National Park Service archaeologists recently found five musket balls fired by members of the colonial militia that day, according to a federal agency press release.
“It’s incredible that we can stand here and hold in our hands a few seconds of history that changed the world nearly 250 years ago,” said Jarrad Fuoss, a ranger at Minute Man National Historical Park and a specialist in historic weapons, in the press release. “These musket balls can be considered collectively ‘The Shot That Went Around the World,’ and it’s incredible that they have survived this long.”
The bullets were found near the North Bridge, where British soldiers faced militiamen in the famous three-minute Battle of Concord, the park service said.
“A closer analysis of the musket balls shows that each was fired from the opposite side of the river and was not dropped during reloading,” park service officials said.
The recently discovered five musket balls will be exhibited in the park on Saturday.
The fighting that led to the founding of the United States began that day in 1775 with a brief skirmish in Lexington, Massachusetts, in which eight militiamen were killed and ten wounded.
The British moved on to Concord to search for military supplies, leaving a contingent of about 100 soldiers at the North Bridge. As militiamen approached, the British troops fired shots.
Historians say that 18 men were killed or wounded in the Battle of the Bridge. Fighting that day in Lexington, Concord and elsewhere claimed the lives of more than 120 people.
