Today marks 250 years since someone fired the shot heard ‘round the world at Lexington Green. But what if that shot had never been fired? I’ve been thinking about this question while writing my alternative history fiction, not because I love counterfactual history (though I do), but because understanding what didn’t happen helps me write what might have happened instead.

April 19, 1775. Lexington Green. British troops march to seize colonial weapons.

Militia gather to resist.

Someone fires a shot. Nobody knows who. Both sides claim the other fired first. What if a musket went off by itself?

But here’s what fascinates me as a writer. That moment was more fragile than we think.

What if Captain Parker had ordered his men to disperse completely? What if Major Pitcairn had turned his troops around? What if cooler heads had prevailed on both sides?

The Revolution was probably inevitable. Maybe not that day, but eventually. It required hundreds of individual decisions, each building toward the same conclusion.

No shot means no immediate escalation.

The British seize the weapons cache at Concord. The militia grumble but go home. News of the confrontation spreads. But without bloodshed, it becomes another grievance rather than a call to arms.

The Continental Congress still meets, but they’re debating petitions, not declaring independence.

Would Parliament have offered real concessions? Probably not. The British had just beaten the French and felt their power. Peaceful power transitions weren’t really a thing in 1775. More likely, they would have doubled down on control.

Think less like Canada’s path to independence, more like a slower buildup to the same explosive conclusion. Americans revolt. It’s what we do.

Maybe the French stay out of it? No massive military aid to the colonies. No French debt crisis. Maybe no French Revolution either. Probably not. After all, the English and French had only been fighting one another since the turn of the first millennium. It took the Germans a century later to end that conflict.

This alternative America develops along different lines entirely.

Westward expansion happens more gradually. The British government manages relationships with Native American tribes differently. Less catastrophic displacement. Different patterns of settlement.

Slavery might have ended sooner. The British Empire was moving toward abolition decades before the American Civil War. A colonial America within the Empire might have followed that timeline. Wilberforce in America?

No American Revolution means no inspiration for other democratic movements. The world looks fundamentally different.

Industrial development follows British patterns. Different cities become major centers. Different immigrant populations. Different cultural development.

This kind of thinking helps me write believable alternative history.

The key is identifying genuine turning points. Moments where individual decisions could have changed everything.

Some historical events really were inevitable, just not in the specific way they happened. The Revolution was coming. Too many fundamental conflicts between British imperial goals and colonial interests.

But when you’re writing characters making decisions in real time, they don’t know the outcome. They’re operating on incomplete information, personal motivations, immediate pressures.

The militia captain at Lexington didn’t know he was accelerating the inevitable. He was trying to figure out how to protect his men and his community. He was defending his rights as an Englishman. Not an American. Not yet.

That’s what I’m exploring in my fiction. How individual choices ripple outward.

A character discovers advanced technology. Do they share it? Hide it? Try to control who gets access? Each choice leads to completely different futures.

The colonist who finds something that could change the balance of power faces the same kind of decision as those militia on Lexington Green. Act or wait? Fight or negotiate? Trust or suspect?

These aren’t just plot devices. They’re explorations of how history actually works.

Through both grand forces and individual choices. The big trends create the pressure. People making difficult decisions determine exactly how that pressure gets released.

History has both inevitable forces and contingent moments. The Revolution was coming, but the specific timing and method were shaped by individual decisions.

That shot fired 250 years ago wasn’t destined to happen on that exact day. But the underlying conflicts were real. British imperial policy after 1763 had set the colonies on a collision course with the empire.

Understanding that helps me write characters who feel real. Because real people don’t know they’re living through “historic moments.” They’re just trying to navigate whatever crisis is in front of them. Today’s problems, not tomorrow’s interpretation.

The shot heard ‘round the world was fired by someone who probably just wanted to go home safely that night. He didn’t know he was lighting the fuse on something that was already going to explode.

That’s the kind of human detail that makes alternative history feel authentic.