Fan Casting Thomas Paine in Historical Figures (North America)

Thomas Paine was an English-born American Founding Father, political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary. He authored Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783), two of the most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, and helped inspire the Patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Great Britain, theretofore an unpopular cause. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era ideals of transnational human rights.