From Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution

Born in Norfolk, England, Thomas Paine (1737–1809) was a rationalist philosopher, political commentator, and activist: one of the most controversial figures of the 1790s, his name was virtually synonymous with revolutionism. Paine spent time in America in the 1770s and 80s, and his arguments in support of American independence from British rule, in the pamphlets Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783), were a key influence on the revolutionary movement in that country. He became close friends with a number of the Founding Fathers of the American Republic, including Benjamin Franklin (1705–1790) and George Washington (1732–1799), and it has even been suggested that Paine had some role in the…