A classic photo.

Patriot and Redcoat run the Marathon. And yes, she got all the way to Brookline holding a hobby horse.

Presidents' Day was a couple months ago, Abe:

That's a lot of runners on Beacon Street:

Furore as Redcoat stabs, beats Jason Russell to death in front of his own home this very afternoon.

Reports reach us that chastened regulars beating a slow retreat from their whupping at North Bridge in Concord this morning set upon the citizens of Menotomy, attempting to ransack and burn down houses in the village as brave patriots assembled at Jason Russell's house to try to stop them.

Attacked from two sides, the Patriots fell victim to His Majesty's Loathsome Musketballs and Swords:

J.L. Bell posts a deposition from Edward Thoroton Gould, a lieutenant in His Majesty's 4th Regiment of Foot who was on the front line at the Battle at the Old North Bridge.

... On our arrival at that place, we saw a body of provincial troops, armed, to the number of about sixty or seventy men. On our approach, they dispersed, and soon after firing began, but which party fired first I can not exactly say, as our troops rushed on shouting and huzzaing previous to the firing, which was continued by our troops so long as any of the provincials were to be seen. ...

Father Austin Fleming, who lives in Concord, reports:

Just after midnight tonight I'll hear a fife and drum corps marching down Main Street to the green in Monument Square, where I live.

Only in Concord, Massachusetts might a parade pass by your home at midnight! ...

If it's cool, look for Bill Rodgers.

Aaron Donovan loves when friends jump into the Marathon to run for awhile with their friends.

Paul Kelleher captures the women leaders at mile 17 (he took more Marathon photos, too).

This little kid just stood in Washington Square with his hand out today. It was amazing how many runners gave him a hand slap.

Faegirl spots the modern-day Paul Revere after he rowed across the Harbor to Charlestown.

Once again, the Regulars marched right through Lexington Green at dawn, killing a few colonists standing in their way as they headed toward Concord in search of militia munitions.

You learn a lot at the annual re-creation of the battle (which from start to finish, takes maybe five minutes, and most of that is the British soldiers assembling, locking bayonets and shouting "Huzzah!" before they shoot the first Minuteman and then stomp on him). To start, somebody from the Lexington Minutemen gives you an explanation of what you're about to see.

But you also learn that there are a couple thousand other insane people willing to get up before the crack of dawn to watch the battle. And because of that, and because Lexington Green is flat, you learn that if you ever make the trek again, you either need to make like the veteran battle-goers and bring a ladder to climb up on (or, at the minimum, a sturdy bucket) or you need to be nine years old and adept at worming your way through the crowd to the very edge of the battlefield.

It was puzzling at first to hear the victorious Redcoats march off the Green while their fifers played "Yankee Doodle Dandy," until I remembered that they were playing it to insult the Minutemen - who, by the end of the day, adopted the song as their own.

Father: So what'd you think?
Son: It's the same every year.

The dead, the dying and the incongruous:

Calm amid the chaos: