January 9, 1776
Thomas Paine published his pamphlet “Common Sense,” setting forth his arguments in favor of American independence. Pamphlets were an important medium for the spread of ideas in the 16th through 19th centuries. He wrote: “This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither they have fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.”
