<P> "The shot heard round the world" is a phrase referring to several historical incidents, particularly the opening of the American Revolutionary War in 1775 and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in 1914 . </P> <P> The phrase comes from the opening stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Concord Hymn" (1837) and refers to the first shot of the American Revolution . According to Emerson's poem, this pivotal shot occurred at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts, where the first British soldiers fell in the battles of Lexington and Concord . </P> <P> Historically, no single shot can be cited as the first shot of the battle or the war . Shots were fired earlier at Lexington, Massachusetts where eight Americans were killed and a British soldier was slightly wounded, but accounts of that event are confused and contradictory, and it has been characterized as a massacre rather than a battle . The North Bridge skirmish did see the first shots by Americans acting under orders, the first organized volley by Americans, the first British fatalities, and the first British retreat . </P>

Who fired the shot heard 'round the world