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Publication of the first American Crisis pamphlet

When: 19 December 1776
Where: Publication venue: The Pennsylvania Journal (city of publication not stated in supplied passages)
Part of: Publication of 'The American Crisis'

Thomas Paine published the first Crisis paper on December 19, 1776, appearing in The Pennsylvania Journal, opening with "These are the times that try men's souls."

The first of the pamphlets in Paine's American Crisis series was published in The Pennsylvania Journal on December 19, 1776. Paine signed the pamphlets with the pseudonym "Common Sense." The opening pamphlet famously begins "These are the times that try men's souls," then argues that Great Britain has no right to invade the colonies, a power belonging "only to God," and asserts that bound colonists would be enslaved. The series was intended to recharge the revolutionary cause.

Sources

The American Crisis Wikipedia, revision of 2026-04-04

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.