Thomas Paine

Paine left England in October 1774 with Franklin's support.

Paine arrived in Philadelphia on November 30, 1774.

Paine began writing the pamphlet in late 1775 under the working title Plain Truth, after establishing himself in Philadelphia's newspaper business.

Paine, incensed, ordered Bell not to proceed on a second edition, as he had planned several appendices to add to Common Sense.

Common Sense was published anonymously on January 10, 1776, in Philadelphia, becoming an immediate sensation at the beginning of the American Revolution.

The Connecticut Courant printed the entire pamphlet on February 19, 1776, and newspaper debates in Philadelphia gave the work a second life.

Paine's name did not become officially connected with the independence controversy until March 30, 1776, following the anonymous publication.

Washington ordered a fort on the Hudson's west side; construction began in July 1776, and it was renamed Fort Lee in September.

The defeat and capture of Continental troops at Fort Washington on November 16, 1776 left Fort Lee defenseless.

On the night of November 19, 1776, 5,000 British troops were ferried across the Hudson on barges, beginning the invasion of New Jersey.

Washington and Greene ordered Fort Lee's evacuation on the morning of November 20, 1776, as British and Hessian forces invaded New Jersey.

The Continental Army's general retreat began along a road now Main Street; during it Thomas Paine published "The American Crisis".

A week before the crossing, expiring enlistments threatened the army, but Paine's pamphlet published December 19 lifted morale.

Washington planned three crossings in secrecy, justified the risk as dire necessity, and on December 25 issued logistical orders.

The army arrived at 4 pm on December 25, but most troops reached the crossing point only around 6 pm, after sunset.

On the night of December 25–26, Washington's column crossed the icy river from Bucks County, Pennsylvania to Mercer County, New Jersey.

After Trenton, the army recrossed to Pennsylvania with Hessian prisoners and stores, then crossed a third time at the end of 1776.

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 pamphlet encouraged colonists to value victory and freedom, warning against cowardice, and framed British power as impious and enslaving.

Thomas Paine suggested a bank to fund Continental Army provisions; it was organized in Philadelphia on July 17, 1780.

The book damaged Burke's case and caused a furore; Paine was convicted of seditious libel in absentia while in France.

Joseph Johnson printed Rights of Man for publication on 21 February 1791, but the edition was withdrawn for fear of prosecution.

Rights of Man, the first part of Paine's reply to Burke, was published in London in March 1791, containing 31 articles.

The book defended the French Revolution against Burke's 1790 attack, countering his case for aristocratic inheritance of power.

Paine argued that revolution is permissible when natural rights are unprotected, treating the Bastille as the symbol of overthrown despotism.

Paine did not directly condone uprising against the British monarchy, using more subdued rhetoric than in his other controversial works.

Paine was convicted in absentia in England in 1792 for seditious libel, correcting the legacy claim of treason.

Paine fled England in September 1792 to avoid arrest for seditious libel, subsequently being elected to the French National Convention.

The original Wearmouth Bridge, a through arch over the River Wear designed by Rowland Burdon on Thomas Paine's concept, opened in 1796.