On this episode of Our American Stories, few writers have ever changed the course of history the way Thomas Paine did. His pamphlet Common Sense electrified the American colonies, helped turn public opinion toward independence, and inspired ordinary Americans to support the Revolution. Later, his American Crisis essays rallied George Washington's troops during some of the darkest days of the war.

In Thomas Paine and the Clarion Call for American Independence, historian Harlow Giles Unger tells the remarkable story of the man John Adams called "the first man of the Revolution" and explores how Paine's words helped shape not only the American Revolution, but democratic movements around the world. Audio courtesy of the U.S. National Archives.

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