<Li> Thompson's War </Li> <Li> Knox artillery train </Li> <P> The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War . The battles were fought on April 19, 1775 in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy (present - day Arlington), and Cambridge . They marked the outbreak of armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and its thirteen colonies in America . </P> <P> In late 1774, Colonial leaders adopted the Suffolk Resolves in resistance to the alterations made to the Massachusetts colonial government by the British parliament following the Boston Tea Party . The colonial assembly responded by forming a Patriot provisional government known as the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and calling for local militias to train for possible hostilities . The Colonial government exercised effective control of the colony outside of British - controlled Boston . In response, the British government in February 1775 declared Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion . </P>

When was the first shot of the revolutionary war fired