Thomas Paine (1737 – 1809) was an English-born American Founding Father, French Revolutionary, 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 he helped to inspire the colonial era patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Great Britain. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era ideals of human rights.