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Hello, and thanks for joining Revolution 250, where we look at events that took place 250 years ago

this week. This is from the American Revolution podcast, a short bonus episode to remind you

about important anniversaries of the Revolutionary War.

This week, we remember the publication of Common Sense on January 9, 1776.

What does Sputnik have to do with student loans? How did a set of trembling hands end the Soviet Union? How did inflation kill moon bases?

And how did a former president decide to run for a second non-consecutive term? These are among the

topics we deal with on the My History Can Beat Up Your Politics Podcast. We tell stories of history that relate

to today's news events. Give a listen. My history

can feed up your politics wherever you get podcasts. On January 9, 1776, a new political pamphlet

swept across the colonies. Common Sense first appeared in Philadelphia as an anonymous pamphlet. The first run of a thousand

copies quickly sold out, and numerous reprints began to pop up all over the continent. Later

editions named the author as Thomas Payne. Payne had recently arrived in Philadelphia with a letter of recommendation from Benjamin Franklin.

Before that, he had lived his whole life in England as a staymaker, a sailor, a tax collector,

and a schoolteacher. When he arrived in Philadelphia, he began working as a magazine editor.

As such, Payne took very radical and controversial positions

on a variety of issues in his publications. In the fall of 1775, he began writing a pamphlet on

independence, which hit the streets of Philadelphia on January 9, 1776. Part of the appeal of common sense was that it did not

simply repeat all the arguments over English encroachments on traditional rights. It went much farther,

attacking fundamental assumptions of monarchy and colonialism. The work began with a common social contract notions that all government

is, at best, a necessary evil to allow people to live together in a society. But then he went on to

attack directly the idea of monarchical government, run by a man who had no legitimacy to rule over

...