Thomas Paine
9 February 1737 – 8 June 1809
Thomas Paine (1737-1809) was an English-born American political writer and revolutionary whose pamphlet Common Sense (1776) galvanized support for American independence. He later defended the French Revolution in Rights of Man, sat in the French National Convention, and narrowly escaped the guillotine. His deist critique of organized religion, The Age of Reason, made him widely reviled, and he died in New York in relative obscurity.
Lived at the same time
Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Thomas Paine.
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- John Adams (1735–1826) Overlapped 72 years →
- Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) Overlapped 72 years →
- Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736–1813) Overlapped 72 years →
- Henry Cavendish (1731–1810) Overlapped 72 years →
- Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1729–1811) Overlapped 72 years →
Life events
Thomas Paine was born on 9 February 1737 (New Style) to a Quaker corset-maker father and Anglican mother.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgPaine followed his father's stay-making trade before serving intermittently as a customs excise officer in England, being dismissed twice.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgPaine arrived in Philadelphia in November 1774 and soon became editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgThe pamphlet, published on 10 January 1776, argued forcefully for American independence and became the best-selling work of the revolutionary era.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgBeginning in December 1776 with the words 'These are the times that try men's souls,' Paine's Crisis papers rallied the American cause through the war.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgPaine's two-part reply (1791-1792) to Burke's Reflections defended revolutionary principles and led to his conviction in absentia for seditious libel in England.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgIn 1792 revolutionary France granted Paine citizenship and the department of Pas-de-Calais elected him to the National Convention despite his not speaking French.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgArrested in December 1793 as a foreigner allied with the moderate faction, Paine spent nearly a year imprisoned in Paris and completed The Age of Reason around this period.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgPaine sailed back to America in 1802, finding his reputation damaged by The Age of Reason and his attack on George Washington.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgPaine died on 8 June 1809 in Greenwich Village; only a handful of mourners attended his funeral.
Source: en.wikipedia.org