“I am not throwin’ away my shot…” Minute Man National Historical Park recently announced the discovery of five musket balls that are believed to have been fired by provincial militia soldiers on April 19, 1775, in what was later coined as “The Shot Heard Round the World.” The musket balls were discovered in an area of the park where British soldiers gathered to resist a river crossing. According to analysis of the musket balls, they were fired from the opposite side of the river, not dropped while reloading. The fighting at North Bridge in Concord, though brief, was a pivotal moment in the battles of Lexington and Concord. Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his 1837 “Concord Hymn,” deemed the battle “The Shot Heard Round the World” because of how it escalated the conflict. The archaeologists who uncovered the musket balls were surveying an area along the Concord River for a future Great American Outdoors Act project minutemannps. Image 1: One of the five musket balls archaeologists discover...