The weekend marked the 250th anniversary of the first shots fired in the American Revolution against the British Empire and a tyrannical monarch, King George III. In Massachusetts, the first battle of the American Revolution on April 19, 1775, known as the Battle of Lexington and Concord, is celebrated over a three-day weekend with the state holiday called Patriots’ Day, recognized on the third Monday in April in the commonwealth.

Today, in U.S. history books, the start of the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) is known famously, at least to those who learned American history in school, as the famous “shot heard ’round the world.” The skirmishes by colonial militia against the imperial army of the British Empire persuaded many Americans to take up arms in the eventual conflict.

The issues that led to the first conflict of the American Revolution—the right to self-determination, liberty, democracy, the rule of law, a life free from the power of kings—helped to forge a nation 13 years later, in 1788.

That year, the American colonies adopted the U.S. Constitution. While revolutionary, it was also terribly marred and flawed by enshrining chattel slavery that held millions of African Americans in bondage until the end of the bloody Civil War in 1865. It was our country’s greatest sin. Ultimately, it would take over two centuries to guarantee the document’s original promise for all persons.

This framework for a nation, set forth in the Constitution, called for a system of checks and balances by three branches of government: the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. It begins with these famous words: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

On April 19, 2025, this sacred American text had special meaning for hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Americans across United States, who sought to renew their relation to our country’s charter and find living and breathing meaning of what the Constitution guarantees to all persons in our country, by the force of law.

Boston University historian Heather Cox Richardson, publisher of the newsletter “Letters from an American,” has a wonderful essay on these events two and a half centuries earlier and how we can make sense of these events in our country today. I hope you either read or listen.

Resources:

-Heather Cox Richardson (University of Boston, professor of American History): “Letters from an American, April 18, 2025” (audio).

-Heather Cox Richardson (University of Boston, professor of American History): “Letters from an American,” April 18, 2025 (text):

-Hillel Italie and Micheal Casey, “250 years after America went to war for independence, a divided nation battles over its legacy.” Associated Press, April 19, 2025.