Lexington is a town in Massachusetts that was the site of one of the first battles in the American Revolution.

On April 19, 1775, British troops were sent to Lexington to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Paul Revere made his famous ride to warn the Americans of the British advance.

Seventy armed militia led by Captain John Parker met the British soldiers on the village green. A shot rang out and the British began firing. No one knows to this day who fired the first shot. Eight Americans were killed and ten were wounded. The battle continued later that day in Concord.

In 1836, the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson in his poem "Concord Hymn" coined the phrase "The shot heard round the world" that signaled the start of the American Revolution.