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Topic: Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine (whose surname was originally spelled pain) was born on this date in 1737. A trained corset maker, he was fired as an excise officer for failing to inspect goods; he established (and failed to sustain) a tobacco shop, lost two wives (one to childbirth, the other by separation), narrowly avoided debtor's prison, and, at age 37, at the suggestion of Benjamin Franklin, emigrated to the American colonies in 1774.

That's when Thomas Paine really began earning his place in history. How? Most famously, he wrote Common Sense, the pamphlet whose phenomenal success brought the topic of revolution into open debate. According to John Adams, a revolutionary figure himself, "History . . . [will] ascribe the American revolution to Thomas Paine."

Paine's fame and notoriety continued after 1776. He was tried on seditious libel charges in England, given both honorary citizenship and a death sentence in revolutionary France, and publicly broke with George Washington, declaring himself torn between labeling the president an apostate and an imposter. Paine's 1809 obituary in the New York Citizen included the observation: "He lived long, did some good and much harm." Perhaps, but Paine was remembered admiringly by Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, and anyone stirred by Thomas Paine's declaration that "These are the times that try men's souls."

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