Thomas Paine (or Pain; February 9, 1737 [O.S. January 29, 1736] - June
8, 1809) was an English-American political activist, philosopher,
political theorist, and revolutionary. One of the Founding Fathers of
the United States, he authored the two most influential pamphlets at the
start of the American Revolution, and he inspired the rebels in 1776 to
declare independence from Britain. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era
rhetoric of transnational human rights. He has been called "a
corsetmaker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by
inclination."