About Freethinkers Day
Freethinkers Day celebrates the life of Thomas Paine, born on today's date in 1737.
Thomas Paine was an English-born American political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary. He authored Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783), the two most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, and helped inspire the patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Great Britain.
The day educates the public about Paine's work and about freethinking, which rejects arbitrary authority and puts reason and logic before faith.
Ernestine Rose wrote about Paine's birthday being celebrated by secularists in New York City in the 1850s, but it gained more "official" status decades later when it was promoted as a holiday by The Truth Seeker magazine founded by D.M. Bennett in New York in 1873.
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