Thomas Paine

Born in Thetford, Norfolk, in 1737, Paine crossed to the colonies in 1774 with Benjamin Franklin's backing and arrived just as rebellion crystallized. His 47-page Common Sense in 1776 catalyzed the break from Britain - virtually every Patriot read it - and he followed with The American Crisis pamphlets through 1783. He returned to Britain in 1787, wrote Rights of Man in 1791 to defend the French Revolution against Edmund Burke, and was convicted in absentia for seditious libel in 1792. He fled to France that September, won a seat in the National Convention despite speaking no French, then landed in Luxembourg Prison in December 1793 when the Montagnards turned on him; James Monroe secured his release in November 1794. Back in America by 1802, Paine had alienated former allies with a bitter open letter denouncing George Washington as incompetent and hypocritical, published Agrarian Justice in 1797 proposing a guaranteed minimum income, and spent his final years ostracized for ridiculing Christianity. He died in June 1809 with six mourners at the grave.