American Minute with Bill Federer 

Paul Revere was captured along the way, but William Dawes and Samuel Prescott continued the midnight ride from Boston's Old North Church to warn the inhabitants of Concord that British troops were coming to seize their guns. 

In early dawn, APRIL 19, 1775, American "Minutemen," as poet Emerson wrote, fired the "shot heard round the world" by confronting the British on Lexington Green and at Concord's Old North Bridge. 

The conflict began that in eight years would end in independence. 

New England celebrates this as "Patriots' Day." 

Also on APRIL 19, in the year 1951, Five-Star General Douglas MacArthur retired from 48 years of patriotic service. 

One of the most decorated soldiers in U.S. history, MacArthur served in France in WWI, was Superintendent of West Point and the youngest Army Chief of Staff. 

General Douglas MacArthur was Supreme Allied Commander in the Pacific in WWII and received Japan's surrender. 

He commanded UN forces against North Korea, but was dismissed by President Truman for not fighting a limited war. 

Douglas MacArthur said: 

"Like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who has tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty."
 
 
“Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines which conflict with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence…let me entreat you to come back. Return to the fountains whose waters spring close to the blood of the Revolution.”

-- Abraham Lincoln


 
 
"Objects of the most stupendous magnitude and measure, in which the lives and liberties of millions yet unborn are intimately interested, are now before us. We are in the very midst of a revolution the most complete, unexpected and remarkable of any in the history of nations."

-- John Adams, letter to William Cushing, 1776

 
 
"In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America has set the example ... of charters of power granted by liberty. This revolution in the practice of the world, may, with an honest praise, be pronounced the most triumphant epoch of its history, and the most consoling presage of its happiness."

-- James Madison