Shot heard 'round the world

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The stanza is inscribed at the base of The Minute Man statue by Daniel Chester French

"The shot heard 'round the world" is a famous phrase that has come to represent a number of historical incidents throughout world history. The line is originally from the opening stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson's Concord Hymn (1837), and refered to the beginning of the American Revolutionary War. Later, in Europe and the Commonwealth of Nations, the phrase became synonymous with the shot that killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand and plunged Europe into the First World War.

American Revolutionary War

The phrase in United States history comes from the opening stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson's Concord Hymn (1837), and describes the impact of the battle at Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts on April 19, 1775. The entire stanza is:

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.

Emerson used hyperbole as a rhetorical tool in the phrase "shot heard 'round the world." He wrote Concord Hymn for the dedication of a battle monument very close to his family's home, and the words are meant to emphasize that a critical event happened at this location that triggered something of global importance.

The phrase is an analogy. Perhaps firing the shot represents fighting this particular battle and what was heard was the news about it. Perhaps it represents the beginning of the entire war and what was heard was the news of a new nation and a retreat for the British Empire. It is often thought that firing the shot was meant to represent the beginning of a struggle for freedom against perceived tyranny, and the hearing represents the worldwide spread of this struggle with the American Revolution serving as an example. This third analogy would reflect Emerson's belief in American exceptionalism. The historian David M. Wrobel wrote: "Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were transcendentalists first, perhaps Romantic Nationalists second, and American exceptionalists third. Such distinctions are worth remembering if we are to see the tremendous variety and disorderliness of American thought, as opposed to seeing those diverse strands as neatly woven parts of a coherent exceptionalist fabric." ([The Complexities of American Exceptionalism])

To a modern reader there seems to be a number of disagreements between "farmers" (plural) firing "the shot" (singular). This could be interpreted as an understatement by Emerson to emphasize the hyperbole at the end of the phrase. Alternate definitions of shot as an attempt, a guess, or a bet may also be considered (e.g., "give it your best shot," "that bet is a long shot"). A more likely explanation is that Emerson is simply using "shot" in the collective sense (i.e., "volleys of shot"). The hyperbole, of course, is that the battle itself was not loud enough to be heard around the world. Thus some figurative use of "fired the shot" and perhaps of "heard" must be meant.

In popular culture, the phrase is often connected with the mystery of the literal first musket shot of the war. This occurred in Lexington earlier on the morning of April 19. It is not known whether a soldier of the British Army or a colonial militiaman fired this first shot of the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

The Schoolhouse Rock! educational shorts included an "America Rock" piece on the American Revolutionary War entitled "The Shot Heard 'Round the World." Written and performed by Bob Dorough, it attributes the first shot to the British.

Assassination of Franz Ferdinand

In Europe and the Commonwealth of Nations, the phrase "The Shot heard around the World" has become associated with Gavrilo Princip's assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, an event considered as one of the main causitive factors of the First World War.

While Princip in fact fired two shots, one hitting Duchess Sophie with the second hitting Archduke Franz, it was the death of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne that propelled Europe and its allies into what would become known as the War To End All Wars.

See the article Assassination of Franz Ferdinand for a detailed discussion of these events.

Modern Usage

The phrase has also used been for dramatic moments in sports history. In golf, it was used most often to describe the 1935 par-5 double eagle 2 at the Masters Tournament by Gene Sarazen. In baseball, it was used for Bobby Thomson's 1951 walk-off home run that clinched the National League pennant for the New York Giants. In American soccer, it is used in an analogy to Lexington to describe the goal scored by Paul Caligiuri for the United States men's national soccer team against Trinidad and Tobago in Port of Spain in 1989 which propelled the team to the 1990 World Cup, helping to start a resurgence of American soccer on the international scene.

More recently the phrase was used by MSNBC and Newsweek to describe Dick Cheney's accidental shooting of Harry Whittington in a hunting accident.

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