Happy Birthday Thomas Paine

January 29 marks the anniversary of Thomas Paine's birth in 1737. He is primarily remembered for his fiery rhetoric in support of America's revolution, and it would be hard to overestimate his role in it. As John Adams once said, "without the pen of Paine, the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain."

Common Sense, first published in January 1776, argued strongly for independence from England, and was the most widely read pamphlet of the American Revolution, selling almost 500,000 copies to a population of 2.5 million. The first essay of The Crisis (with the famous opening line: "These are the times that that try men's souls"), written by Paine at the front lines with Washington's army in 1776, was read aloud in every army camp. Its essays (from 1776-1883) were read by a larger fraction of the population than watch the Super Bowl today. And Paine did not make a penny from either, letting the proceeds go to the revolutionary cause instead.

Thomas Paine, An Appreciation