Answer:
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world."
—Hymn sung at the completion of the Battle Monument Concord, July 4, 1837
The claim in Emerson's line is expansive. Can it be true that the shot was heard round the world—when there were no satellites, no television, no radio, no telephone? Let us see.
It then took from five to six weeks for news to cross the Atlantic. (The first regular passenger service between England and the colonies was instituted in 1755.) Thus the news of the "battles" of Lexington and Concord, fought on April 19, 1775, appeared on May 29 in the London press
