Today in History: The American War of Independence Began with the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World”

No one knows who started it, but a young America ended it.

On this day 246 years ago at Lexington and Concord, the American War for Independence began.

British General Thomas Gage had orders to arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock and was told they were hiding out near Lexington and Concord — and that colonists had amassed a large amount of guns and munitions. Gage believed that the colonists would run at the sigh…