title: Terry Nichols

text: In February 1995 Nichols bought a small house in Herington, Kansas, with a cash down payment. In March 1995, he bought diesel fuel. On April 14, Nichols gave McVeigh some cash, according to McVeigh. On April 16, Easter Sunday, Nichols and McVeigh drove to Oklahoma City to drop off the getaway car. On April 18, the day before the bombing, Nichols helped McVeigh prepare the truck bomb at a lake near Herington. McVeigh remarked about Nichols's and Fortier's partial withdrawal from the plot, saying they "were men who liked to talk tough, but in the end their bitches and kids ruled." Nichols was at home in Kansas with his family when the bomb went off.


title: Terry Nichols

text: On April 21, Nichols learned he was wanted for questioning, turned himself in, and consented to a search of his home. The search turned up blasting caps, detonating cords, ground ammonium nitrate, barrels made of plastic similar to fragments found at the bombing site, 33 firearms, anti-government warfare literature, a receipt for ammonium nitrate fertilizer with McVeigh's fingerprints on it, a telephone credit card that McVeigh had used when he was shopping for bomb-making equipment, and a hand-drawn map of downtown Oklahoma City. Nichols was held as a material witness to the bombing until he was charged on May 10.


title: Terry Nichols

text: Investigators also combed the Decker, Michigan, farm of James Nichols where Terry Nichols and McVeigh had stayed intermittently in the months preceding the bombing. James was held in custody on charges that he made small bombs on the farm but was released without charges on May 24, with the judge saying there was no evidence he was a danger to others.


title: Terry Nichols

text: McVeigh was tried before Nichols and sentenced to death. Former army buddy Michael Fortier testified against both McVeigh and Nichols. Fortier had entered into a federal plea agreement for reduced charges in return for his agreement to testify. He was charged with failing to notify authorities in advance of the crime and sentenced to 12 years in prison. Fortier testified that Nichols and McVeigh had expressed anti-government feelings and conspired to blow up the Murrah federal building. He said he helped McVeigh survey the building before the attack. He also testified that Nichols had robbed an Arkansas gun dealer to finance the cost of the bombing. Fortier provided "solid bricks of evidence" for the cases against McVeigh and Nichols, according to the prosecutor.


title: Terry Nichols

text: Nichols' wife Marife testified as a defense witness, but her story may have helped the prosecution's case. She said her husband had been living a double life prior to the bombing, using aliases, renting storage lockers and lying that he had broken off his relationship with McVeigh. She also testified that Nichols traveled to Oklahoma City three days before the bombing, supporting the prosecution's contention that Nichols helped McVeigh station a getaway car near the Murrah building. Marife also failed to give Nichols an alibi for April 18, 1995, the day the prosecution said Nichols helped McVeigh assemble the truck bomb.


title: Terry Nichols

text: Nichols was represented by criminal defense attorney Michael Tigar. The trial lasted nine weeks with the prosecution calling 100 witnesses tying Nichols to McVeigh and the bombing plot. The prosecution argued that Nichols helped McVeigh purchase and steal bomb ingredients, park the getaway car near the Murrah building and assemble the bomb. The defense attempted to cast doubt on the case against Nichols by calling witnesses who said they saw other men with McVeigh before the bombing and by claiming the government had manipulated the evidence against Nichols.


title: Terry Nichols

text: The jury deliberated for 41 hours over a period of six days, acquitting Nichols on December 24, 1997, of actually detonating the bomb, but convicting him of conspiring with McVeigh to use a weapon of mass destruction, a capital offense. They acquitted Nichols on the charges of first degree (premeditated) murder, but convicted him on the lesser charge of involuntary (unintentional) manslaughter in the deaths of the federal law enforcement officers.


title: Terry Nichols

text: In assessing why Nichols was not convicted of first degree murder, "The Washington Post" noted: Another theory is that some members of the jury believed Nichols' attorneys' arguments that he had withdrawn from the conspiracy before the bombing. His apparent remorse as shown by his crying several times during the testimony could also have swayed the jury.


title: Terry Nichols

text: After the penalty hearing concluded, the jury deliberated for 13 hours over two days on whether to give Nichols a death sentence, but deadlocked. U.S. District Court Judge Richard P. Matsch then had the option of giving Nichols life sentence or a lesser term of imprisonment. On June 4, 1998, he sentenced Nichols to life in prison without parole on the conspiracy conviction, calling Nichols "an enemy of the Constitution" who had conspired to destroy everything the Constitution protects. Nichols also received a concurrent 48-year sentence for his eight involuntary manslaughter convictions, six for each victim. Nichols showed no emotion. He was sent to the Federal Supermax Prison in Florence, Colorado. On February 26, 1999, a federal appeals court affirmed Nichols' conviction and sentence.


title: Terry Nichols

text: After the federal jury deadlocked on the death penalty, which resulted in a life sentence, citizens of Oklahoma petitioned to empanel a state court grand jury to investigate the bombing. State representative Charles Key led a citizens group that circulated the petitions. It was hoped that evidence implicating other conspirators would be uncovered. A grand jury heard testimony for 18 months about allegations of other accomplices but returned only the indictments against Nichols in March 1999. Oklahoma County District Attorney Wes Lane denied the state prosecution was conducted solely for the purpose of having Nichols executed, saying it was important Nichols be convicted of killing all the victims. "This case has always been about 161 men, women and children and an unborn baby having the same rights to their day in court as eight federal law enforcement officers," Lane said.


title: Terry Nichols

text: Nichols was brought from the prison in Colorado to Oklahoma in January 2000 to face the state trial on 160 capital counts of first-degree murder and one count each of fetal homicide, first-degree arson, and conspiracy. The prosecutor's goal was to get the death penalty.


title: Terry Nichols

text: During the two-month trial, the prosecution presented a "mountain of circumstantial evidence", calling 151 witnesses. Their star witness was Fortier, who said Nichols was intimately involved in the conspiracy and had helped obtain bomb ingredients including fertilizer that was mixed with high octane fuel. Fortier also testified that McVeigh and Nichols stole cord and blasting caps from a rock quarry, and that Nichols robbed a gun collector to obtain money for the plot. Nichols' lawyers said he was the "fall guy" and that others had conspired with McVeigh. They wanted to introduce evidence that a group of white supremacists had been McVeigh's accomplices. However, the judge did not allow them to do so, saying that the defense had not shown that any of these people committed acts in furtherance of the conspiracy. In their concluding argument, the defense said, "People who are still unknown assisted Timothy McVeigh." On May 26, 2004, the six-man, six-woman jury took five hours to reach guilty verdicts on all charges. When the verdict was read, Nichols showed no emotion, staring straight ahead.


title: Terry Nichols

text: The penalty phase of the trial started on June 1, 2004. The same jury that determined Nichols's guilt would also determine whether he would be put to death. During the five-day hearing, 87 witnesses were called including victims and family members of Nichols. Nichols's relatives testified that he was a loving family man. During the closing arguments, the prosecutor argued for the death penalty, stating that 168 people had died so that Nichols and McVeigh "could make a political statement". The defense argued that Nichols had been controlled by a "dominant, manipulative" McVeigh and urged jurors not to be persuaded by the "flood of tears" of the victims who testified. The defense also said that Nichols had "sincerely" converted to Christianity. After 19½ hours of deliberation over a three-day period, the jury could not reach a unanimous decision on the death penalty. With the death penalty no longer an option, Nichols spoke publicly for the first time in the proceedings, making a lengthy statement laced with religious references to Judge Steven W. Taylor. Nichols also apologized for the murders and offered to write to survivors to "assist in their healing process". Judge Taylor called Nichols a terrorist and said "No American citizen has ever brought this kind of devastation; you are in U.S. history the No. 1 mass murderer in all of U.S. history" and sentenced Nichols to 161 consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole. Nichols was returned to the federal prison in Colorado.


title: Terry Nichols

text: Darlene Welch, whose niece was killed in the explosion, said she "didn't appreciate being preached to" by Nichols and that she regretted that "he won't stand before God sooner."


title: Terry Nichols

text: Acting on a tip from reputed mobster Greg Scarpa, Jr. (son of mobster Greg Scarpa, Sr.), a fellow inmate of Nichols, the FBI searched the crawl space of Nichols's former home in Kansas, 10 years after the bombing. They found explosives in boxes, wrapped in plastic, buried under a foot of rock. The tipster had indicated that the explosives were buried before the attack.


title: Terry Nichols

text: McVeigh, Nichols, and Fortier were the only defendants indicted in the bombing. Nichols denied his involvement in the plot until 2004. Nichols's mother claimed that her son had Asperger syndrome, was manipulated by McVeigh and didn't know what the bomb was for. In a May 2005 letter that he wrote to a relative of two of the victims, Nichols claimed that an Arkansas gun dealer also conspired in the 1995 bombing plot by donating some of the explosives that were used. In a 2006 letter requesting that a judge give his son a light sentence for assault with a deadly weapon, battery of a police officer, and possession of a stolen vehicle, Nichols admitted his participation in the Oklahoma City bombing but said that McVeigh had forced and intimidated him into cooperating.


title: Terry Nichols

text: In a 2007 affidavit, Nichols claimed that in 1992 McVeigh claimed to have been recruited for undercover missions while serving in the military. Nichols also said that in 1995 McVeigh told him that FBI official Larry Potts, who had supervised the Ruby Ridge and Waco operations, had directed McVeigh to blow up a government building. Nichols claimed that he and McVeigh had learned how to make the bomb from individuals they met while attending gun shows. In the same affidavit, Nichols admitted that he and McVeigh stole eight cases of the gel type explosive Tovex from a Marion, Kansas quarry, some of which was later used in the Oklahoma City truck bomb. He admitted that he had helped McVeigh mix the bomb ingredients in the truck the day before the attack, but he denied that he knew the exact target of the bomb. Nichols wanted to testify in more detail in a videotaped deposition, but a federal appeals court ruled against it in 2009.


title: Miramax

text: Miramax, LLC, also known as Miramax Films, is an American film and television production and distribution company founded on December 19, 1979, by brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein, and based in Los Angeles, California.


title: Miramax

text: It was initially a leading producer and distributor of independent films until it became the first company to be acquired by The Walt Disney Company on June 30, 1993. In 2010, the leadership of Disney saw Miramax to be redundant in their directions and on December 3 sold it to Filmyard Holdings, a joint venture of Colony NorthStar, Tutor-Saliba Corporation and Qatar Investment Authority. On March 2, 2016, the company was in turn sold to the beIN Media Group, who then agreed to sell a 49% stake in the company to ViacomCBS (now Paramount Global) on December 20, 2019. It was completed on April 3, 2020, and its stake in Miramax got placed under the umbrella of its film division, Paramount Pictures.


title: Miramax

text: The company was founded by the Weinstein brothers, Harvey and Bob, along with executive Corky Burger in Buffalo, New York, in 1979, and was named by combining the first names of their parents, Miriam and Max. It was created to distribute independent films deemed commercially unfeasible by the major studios.


title: Miramax

text: The company's first major success came when the Weinsteins teamed up with British producer Martin Lewis and acquired the U.S. rights to two concert films Lewis had produced of benefit shows for human rights organization Amnesty International. The Weinsteins worked with Lewis to distill the two films into one film for the American marketplace. The resulting film, the American version of "The Secret Policeman's Other Ball", was a successful release for Miramax in the summer of 1982. This release presaged a "modus operandi" that the company would undertake later in the 1980s of acquiring films from international filmmakers and reworking them to suit American sensibilities and audiences. In its early years, Miramax had to focus primarily as a catalyst for music and decided to do a licensing agreement with Thorn EMI Video, in order to release several of Miramax's early films.


title: Miramax

text: Among the company's other breakthrough films as distributors in the late 1980s and early 1990s were "Pulp Fiction", "Scandal", "Sex, Lies, and Videotape", "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!", "The Crying Game," and "Clerks". The company also made films such as "Flirting with Disaster", "Heavenly Creatures", and "Shakespeare in Love".


title: Miramax

text: Miramax acquired and/or produced many other films that did well financially. The company became one of the leaders of the independent film boom of the 1990s. Miramax produced or distributed seven films with box office grosses totaling more than $100 million; its most successful title, "Chicago", earned more than $300 million worldwide.


title: Miramax

text: The company was also successful in securing Academy Award nominations for its releases, many of which resulted in Oscar wins.


title: Miramax

text: In June 1993, The Walt Disney Company purchased Miramax for $60 million and took on all of the company's then-current debt, which was assumed to be more than $40 million. The acquisition gave Disney entry to the independent film market. Harvey and Bob Weinstein continued to operate Miramax until they left the company on September 30, 2005. During their tenure, the Weinstein brothers ran Miramax independently of other Disney subsidiaries, and as a result had more autonomy than the other Disney-owned companies. Disney, however, had the final say on what Miramax could release (for examples, Disney had banned Miramax from releasing "Kids", "Dogma" and "Fahrenheit 9/11"). Disney's Buena Vista Home Entertainment division released Miramax output on VHS, DVD and Blu-ray Disc in some countries, including the U.S.; elsewhere, the overall distribution of Miramax's output was passed to the regional licensees of Miramax International, a distribution arm of Miramax that was fully autonomous from Disney's own distribution operations.


title: Miramax

text: With a more stable budget, Miramax began moving beyond acquisitions and distribution and into film productions. Until September 30, 2005, the company also operated the label Dimension Films, which was solely founded by Bob to specialize in teen, horror, and other genre films, and created the "Scream" and "Scary Movie" film franchises. Harvey funded larger projects and from up and coming directors including Robert Rodriguez, Gus Van Sant and Quentin Tarantino. Some of the films earned Oscars.


title: Miramax

text: In 1997, Miramax joined Peter Jackson as a primary financial backer in attempting to get the "Lord of the Rings" films produced. Disney disliked the cost of a two-parter, requesting that it be produced as a single film. Jackson and Saul Zaentz rejected Disney's request and looked for another studio or financier. Thus, Miramax sold the rights for "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" to New Line Cinema in August 1998 for about $12 million, which led "The Lord of the Rings" to be produced as a trilogy. Miramax retained a 5% stake in the films' gross and then gave 2.5% to the Weinsteins.


title: Miramax

text: Through Miramax, Harvey founded "Talk" magazine with Tina Brown in 1998 (it shut down in 2002), albeit without the approval of then-Disney chief Michael Eisner, which upset Eisner. Also that year, 30 former employees filed suit over unpaid overtime wages.


title: Miramax

text: By 2003, Miramax was less operative in the independent film market and became more of a mini-major as the company only acquired 3 films while producing "Cold Mountain" for $80 million. The Weinsteins claimed the company was profitable, but Walt Disney Co. president Robert Iger indicated in June 2004 that they were not properly accounting for "account standard overhead, distribution fees, bonuses that we pay Harvey and Bob. Nor are they applying current accounting rules."


title: Miramax

text: After extensive negotiations and much media and industry speculation, on March 30, 2005, Disney and the Weinsteins announced that they would not renew their contractual relationship when their existing agreements expired at the end of September 2005. The primary source of dispute was over distribution of "Fahrenheit 9/11" by Michael Moore. Disney's film studio consortium, Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group, assumed control of Miramax, which was projected to have a smaller annual production budget. The Weinsteins started a new film production company called The Weinstein Company, and took the Dimension Films label with them. The Miramax name remained with the film studio owned by Disney. Production at Miramax was taken over by Daniel Battsek, who had been head of Buena Vista International in the UK. Battsek refocused Miramax to produce films of high quality but low budget. Maple Pictures held the rights to distribute Miramax films in Canada from 2008 up until August 10, 2011, when Maple Pictures was acquired by Alliance Films.


title: Miramax

text: On October 3, 2009, Disney announced that the staff of Miramax was to be reduced by 70%, and the number of releases would be reduced by half to just three films per year. The label's marketing, distribution and administrative functions, which had operated independently, would be folded into the parent studio in Burbank. The move became effective in January 2010. On October 30, 2009, Disney announced the resignation of Daniel Battsek as President of Miramax Films, effective when the transition from the studio in New York to Burbank was completed. The company merged its operations with The Walt Disney Studios on January 28, 2010, shutting down Miramax's separate New York and Los Angeles offices.


title: Miramax

text: Though Disney Studio Chairman Dick Cook was a staunch supporter of Miramax, the brand was less of a priority for CEO Bob Iger, whose strategy was to focus on Disney's branded mass entertainment that could be exploited across Disney's theme parks, television and consumer products. Following Disney's $4 billion acquisition of Marvel Entertainment in 2009, Cook was succeeded by Rich Ross. As a result, Miramax was relegated to the status of distribution label within the Walt Disney Company. The company confirmed that it was looking into selling the Miramax label on February 9, 2010, with Bob Iger explaining "We determined that continuing to invest in new Miramax movies wasn't necessarily a core strategy of ours".


title: Miramax

text: On December 3, 2010, Disney closed the sale of Miramax for US$663 million to Filmyard Holdings, an investment group and joint venture of Colony NorthStar, Tutor-Saliba Corporation, and Qatar Investment Authority. The sale included 700 film titles, books, development projects, and the "Miramax" name. Mike Lang, the former News Corporation business development executive who was selected as the CEO of Miramax, indicated that the company would focus on their existing library, though they would continue making original content.


title: Miramax

text: After the sale was closed, some films already developed at Miramax, including "The Tempest" and "Gnomeo & Juliet", were eventually released by Disney under its Touchstone Pictures banner, and theatrical distribution of "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" and "The Debt" were shifted to FilmDistrict and Focus Features respectively.


title: Miramax

text: On December 16, 2013, Miramax entered into a deal with Harvey and Bob Weinstein's The Weinstein Company to develop and distribute select derivative works of films from the former studio. Sequels, television series, or stage productions of titles such as "Rounders" and "Shakespeare in Love" were among the projects said to be part of this agreement.<ref name="Miramax Press Release 12/16/13"></ref>


title: Miramax

text: On July 17, 2015, Qatar and Colony NorthStar put Miramax up for sale for an offer of $1 billion. Harvey and Bob Weinstein had reportedly regained interest in reacquiring the studio via TWC in September. On March 2, 2016, Miramax was sold to beIN Media Group, a spinoff of Al Jazeera Media Network (which formerly owned its namesake beIN Sports).


title: Miramax

text: In a July 2016 interview Harvey Weinstein stated that he was still interested in combining TWC's film library with Miramax's, after the acquisition of the latter by beIN.


title: Miramax

text: After Miramax's founder Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual assault, Miramax became one of 60 parties bidding on The Weinstein Company on January 16, 2018. On April 27, Miramax and Lantern Capital emerged as the strongest contenders to acquire TWC's assets. Ultimately, it was Lantern that acquired TWC's library.


title: Miramax

text: On June 7, 2019, beIN began the process of selling approximately 50% of Miramax in an effort to offer it for growth. Lionsgate (which distributed Miramax's titles on home video), Spyglass Media Group (owners of the Weinstein Company library, inherited via their deal with Lantern) and Viacom (Paramount's parent company who re-merged with CBS Corporation on December 4, 2019, to form ViacomCBS) were seen as the leading contenders to acquire a stake in the company. By August 19, 2019, Lionsgate and Viacom were the only contenders, as Spyglass Media Group dropped out of contention. On September 11, 2019, it was announced Lionsgate had dropped their bid, making Viacom the only bidder for the stake in Miramax. On November 8, 2019, Viacom exited the negotiations to acquire them. After merging with CBS Corporation to become ViacomCBS, the combined firm resumed talks with Miramax.


title: Miramax

text: On December 20, 2019, ViacomCBS (now known as Paramount Global) announced it would acquire a 49% stake in Miramax for at least $375 million, with Paramount Pictures gaining exclusive worldwide distribution rights to its library. Paramount Pictures and Miramax will also co-produce new content based on titles from the library. The deal officially closed on April 3, 2020.


title: Miramax

text: In June 2020, Miramax and ViacomCBS announced their first co-production, "The Turkish Detective", a television series based on the "Cetin Ikmen" novels by Barbara Nadel.


title: Miramax

text: The company was criticized for delaying or withholding release of Asian films to which it acquires the U.S. distribution rights while trying to bar retailers from legally exporting authentic DVDs of the films.


title: Miramax

text: In a 2005 interview, Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki related that Harvey Weinstein aggressively sought a large number of edits to Miyazaki's anime film "Princess Mononoke" for the film's U.S. release. Miyazaki stated that his producer sent Weinstein a samurai sword with the message "No cuts" attached to the blade. According to Miyazaki, the film was released without the edits Weinstein wanted. Weinstein has always insisted that such editing is done in the interest of creating the most financially viable film. "I'm not cutting for fun," Weinstein said in an interview. "I'm cutting for the shit to work. All my life I served one master — the film. I love movies."


title: Miramax

text: Miramax Family & Miramax Animation (also known known as Miramax Family Films) are the family divisions of Miramax Films; originally founded as one singular company in 1991. The company would shut down in 2006. On March 18, 2019, Miramax revived its family and animation division, with both being founded as separate divisions within the company.


title: Miramax

text: Michael Lachance, who had previously developed projects at DreamWorks Animation and Sony Pictures Animation, was named the division's executive vice president.


title: Miramax

text: Miramax Television is the television production division founded in 1987, assigned to producing television shows based on the existing Miramax film library and original concepts. Its projects include the following:


title: Thomas Paine

text: Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – June 8, 1809) was an English-born American 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 helped inspire the Patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Great Britain, hitherto an unpopular cause. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era ideals of transnational human rights.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Born in Thetford, Norfolk, Paine emigrated to the British American colonies in 1774 with the help of Benjamin Franklin, arriving just in time to participate in the American Revolution. Virtually every rebel read (or listened to a reading of) his 47-page pamphlet "Common Sense", proportionally the all-time best-selling American title, which catalysed the rebellious demand for independence from Great Britain. "The American Crisis" was a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Paine lived in France for most of the 1790s, becoming deeply involved in the French Revolution. While in England, he wrote "Rights of Man" (1791), in part a defense of the French Revolution against its critics. His attacks on Anglo-Irish conservative writer Edmund Burke led to a trial and conviction "in absentia" in England in 1792 for the crime of seditious libel.


title: Thomas Paine

text: The British government of William Pitt the Younger, worried by the possibility that the French Revolution might spread to Britain, had begun suppressing works that espoused radical philosophies. Paine's work, which advocated the right of the people to overthrow their government, was duly targeted, with a writ for his arrest issued in early 1792. Paine fled to France in September where, despite not being able to speak French, he was quickly elected to the French National Convention. The Girondins regarded him as an ally; consequently, the Montagnards, especially Maximilien Robespierre, regarded him as an enemy.


title: Thomas Paine

text: In December 1793, he was arrested and was taken to Luxembourg Prison in Paris. While in prison, he continued to work on "The Age of Reason" (1793–1794). James Monroe, a future President of the United States, used his diplomatic connections to get Paine released in November 1794. Paine became notorious because of his pamphlets and attacks on his former allies, who he felt had betrayed him. In "The Age of Reason" and other writings he advocated Deism, promoted reason and freethought, and argued against institutionalized religions in general and the Christian doctrine in particular. In 1796, he published a bitter open letter to George Washington, whom he denounced as an incompetent general and a hypocrite. He published the pamphlet "Agrarian Justice" (1797), discussing the origins of property and introduced the concept of a guaranteed minimum income through a one-time inheritance tax on landowners. In 1802, he returned to the U.S. When he died on June 8, 1809, only six people attended his funeral, as he had been ostracized for his ridicule of Christianity and attacks on the nation's leaders.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Thomas Paine was born on January 29, 1736 the son of Joseph Pain, a tenant farmer and stay-maker, and Frances () Pain, in Thetford, Norfolk, England. Joseph was a Quaker and Frances an Anglican. Despite claims that Thomas changed the spelling of his family name upon his emigration to America in 1774, he was using "Paine" in 1769, while still in Lewes, Sussex.


title: Thomas Paine

text: He attended Thetford Grammar School (1744–1749), at a time when there was no compulsory education. At the age of 13, he was apprenticed to his father. Following his apprenticeship, aged 19, Paine enlisted and briefly served as a privateer, before returning to Britain in 1759. There, he became a master staymaker, establishing a shop in Sandwich, Kent.


title: Thomas Paine

text: On September 27, 1759, Paine married Mary Lambert. His business collapsed soon after. Mary became pregnant; and, after they moved to Margate, she went into early labour, in which she and their child died.


title: Thomas Paine

text: In July 1761, Paine returned to Thetford to work as a supernumerary officer. In December 1762, he became an Excise Officer in Grantham, Lincolnshire; in August 1764, he was transferred to Alford, also in Lincolnshire, at a salary of £50 per annum. On August 27, 1765, he was dismissed as an Excise Officer for "claiming to have inspected goods he did not inspect". On July 31, 1766, he requested his reinstatement from the Board of Excise, which they granted the next day, upon vacancy. While awaiting that, he worked as a stay-maker.


title: Thomas Paine

text: In 1767, he was appointed to a position in Grampound, Cornwall. Later he asked to leave this post to await a vacancy, and he became a schoolteacher in London.


title: Thomas Paine

text: On February 19, 1768, he was appointed to Lewes in Sussex, a town with a tradition of opposition to the monarchy and pro-republican sentiments since the revolutionary decades of the 17th century. Here he lived above the 15th-century Bull House, the tobacco shop of Samuel Ollive and Esther Ollive.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Paine first became involved in civic matters when he was based in Lewes. He appears in the Town Book as a member of the Court Leet, the governing body for the town. He was also a member of the parish vestry, an influential local Anglican church group whose responsibilities for parish business would include collecting taxes and tithes to distribute among the poor. On March 26, 1771, at age 34, Paine married Elizabeth Ollive, the daughter of his recently deceased landlord, whose business as a grocer and tobacconist he then entered into.


title: Thomas Paine

text: From 1772 to 1773, Paine joined excise officers asking Parliament for better pay and working conditions, publishing, in summer of 1772, "The Case of the Officers of Excise", a 12-page article, and his first political work, spending the London winter distributing the 4,000 copies printed to the Parliament and others. In spring 1774, he was again dismissed from the excise service for being absent from his post without permission. The tobacco shop failed. On April 14, to avoid debtors' prison, he sold his household possessions to pay debts. He formally separated from his wife Elizabeth on June 4, 1774, and moved to London. In September, mathematician, Fellow of the Royal Society, and Commissioner of the Excise George Lewis Scott introduced him to Benjamin Franklin, who was there as a voice for colonial opposition to British colonial rule, especially as it related to the Stamp Act, and the Townshend Acts. He was publisher and editor of the largest American newspaper, "The Pennsylvania Gazette" and suggested emigration to Philadelphia. He handed out a letter of recommendation to Paine, who emigrated in October to the American colonies, arriving in Philadelphia on November 30, 1774.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Paine barely survived the transatlantic voyage. The ship's water supplies were bad and typhoid fever killed five passengers. On arriving at Philadelphia, he was too sick to disembark. Benjamin Franklin's physician, there to welcome Paine to America, had him carried off ship; Paine took six weeks to recover. He became a citizen of Pennsylvania "by taking the oath of allegiance at a very early period". In March 1775, he became editor of the "Pennsylvania Magazine", a position he conducted with considerable ability.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Before Paine's arrival in America, sixteen magazines had been founded in the colonies and ultimately failed, each featuring substantial content and reprints from England. In late 1774, Philadelphia printer Robert Aitken announced his plan to create what he called an "American Magazine" with content derived from the colonies. Paine contributed two pieces to the magazine's inaugural issue dated January 1775, and Aitken hired Paine as the Magazine's editor one month later. Under Paine's leadership, the magazine's readership rapidly expanded, achieving a greater circulation in the colonies than any American magazine up until that point. While Aiken had conceived of the magazine as nonpolitical, Paine brought a strong political perspective to its content, writing in its first issue that "every heart and hand seem to be engaged in the interesting struggle for "American Liberty.""


title: Thomas Paine

text: Paine wrote in the "Pennsylvania Magazine" that such a publication should become a "nursery of genius" for a nation that had "now outgrown the state of infancy," exercising and educating American minds, and shaping American morality. On March 8, 1775, the "Pennsylvania Magazine" published an unsigned abolitionist essay titled "African Slavery in America". The essay is often attributed to Paine on the basis of a letter by Benjamin Rush, recalling Paine's claim of authorship to the essay. The essay attacked slavery as an "execrable commerce" and "outrage against Humanity and Justice."


title: Thomas Paine

text: Consciously appealing to a broader and more working class audience, Paine also used the magazine to discuss worker rights to production. This shift in the conceptualization of politics has been described as a part of "the 'modernization' of political consciousness," and the mobilization of ever greater sections of society into political life.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Paine has a claim to the title "The Father of the American Revolution", which rests on his pamphlets, especially "Common Sense," which crystallized sentiment for independence in 1776. It was published in Philadelphia on January 10, 1776, and signed anonymously "by an Englishman". It was an immediate success, quickly spreading 100,000 copies in three months to the two million residents of the 13 colonies. During the course of the American Revolution, a total of about 500,000 copies were sold, including unauthorized editions. Paine's original title for the pamphlet was "Plain Truth", but Paine's friend, pro-independence advocate Benjamin Rush, suggested "Common Sense" instead. Finding a printer who was daring enough to commit his print shop to the printing of "Common Sense" was not easy. At the advice of Benjamin Rush, Paine commissioned Robert Bell to print his work.


title: Thomas Paine

text: The pamphlet came into circulation in January 1776, after the Revolution had started. It was passed around and often read aloud in taverns, contributing significantly to spreading the idea of republicanism, bolstering enthusiasm for separation from Britain, and encouraging recruitment for the Continental Army. Paine provided a new and convincing argument for independence by advocating a complete break with history. "Common Sense" is oriented to the future in a way that compels the reader to make an immediate choice. It offers a solution for Americans disgusted with and alarmed at the threat of tyranny.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Paine's attack on monarchy in "Common Sense" is essentially an attack on George III. Whereas colonial resentments were originally directed primarily against the king's ministers and Parliament, Paine laid the responsibility firmly at the king's door. "Common Sense" was the most widely read pamphlet of the American Revolution. It was a clarion call for unity against the corrupt British court, so as to realize America's providential role in providing an asylum for liberty. Written in a direct and lively style, it denounced the decaying despotisms of Europe and pilloried hereditary monarchy as an absurdity. At a time when many still hoped for reconciliation with Britain, "Common Sense" demonstrated to many the inevitability of separation.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Paine was not on the whole expressing original ideas in "Common Sense", but rather employing rhetoric as a means to arouse resentment of the Crown. To achieve these ends, he pioneered a style of political writing suited to the democratic society he envisioned, with "Common Sense" serving as a primary example. Part of Paine's work was to render complex ideas intelligible to average readers of the day, with clear, concise writing unlike the formal, learned style favored by many of Paine's contemporaries. Scholars have put forward various explanations to account for its success, including the historic moment, Paine's easy-to-understand style, his democratic ethos, and his use of psychology and ideology.


title: Thomas Paine

text: "Common Sense" was immensely popular in disseminating to a very wide audience ideas that were already in common use among the elite who comprised Congress and the leadership cadre of the emerging nation, who rarely cited Paine's arguments in their public calls for independence. The pamphlet probably had little direct influence on the Continental Congress' decision to issue a Declaration of Independence, since that body was more concerned with how declaring independence would affect the war effort. One distinctive idea in "Common Sense" is Paine's beliefs regarding the peaceful nature of republics; his views were an early and strong conception of what scholars would come to call the democratic peace theory.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Loyalists vigorously attacked "Common Sense"; one attack, titled "Plain Truth" (1776), by Marylander James Chalmers, said Paine was a political quack and warned that without monarchy, the government would "degenerate into democracy". Even some American revolutionaries objected to "Common Sense"; late in life John Adams called it a "crapulous mass". Adams disagreed with the type of radical democracy promoted by Paine (that men who did not own property should still be allowed to vote and hold public office) and published "Thoughts on Government" in 1776 to advocate a more conservative approach to republicanism.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Sophia Rosenfeld argues that Paine was highly innovative in his use of the commonplace notion of "common sense". He synthesized various philosophical and political uses of the term in a way that permanently impacted American political thought. He used two ideas from Scottish Common Sense Realism: that ordinary people can indeed make sound judgments on major political issues, and that there exists a body of popular wisdom that is readily apparent to anyone. Paine also used a notion of "common sense" favored by philosophes in the Continental Enlightenment. They held that common sense could refute the claims of traditional institutions. Thus, Paine used "common sense" as a weapon to de-legitimize the monarchy and overturn prevailing conventional wisdom. Rosenfeld concludes that the phenomenal appeal of his pamphlet resulted from his synthesis of popular and elite elements in the independence movement.


title: Thomas Paine

text: According to historian Robert Middlekauff, "Common Sense" became immensely popular mainly because Paine appealed to widespread convictions. Monarchy, he said, was preposterous and it had a heathenish origin. It was an institution of the devil. Paine pointed to the Old Testament, where almost all kings had seduced the Israelites to worship idols instead of God. Paine also denounced aristocracy, which together with monarchy were "two ancient tyrannies." They violated the laws of nature, human reason, and the "universal order of things," which began with God. That was, Middlekauff says, exactly what most Americans wanted to hear. He calls the Revolutionary generation "the children of the twice-born". because in their childhood they had experienced the Great Awakening, which, for the first time, had tied Americans together, transcending denominational and ethnic boundaries and giving them a sense of patriotism.


title: Thomas Paine

text: While there is no historical record of Paine's involvement in drafting the Declaration of Independence, some scholars of Early American History have suspected Thomas Paine's involvement over the past two centuries. As noted by the Thomas Paine National Historical Association, multiple authors have hypothesized and written on the subject, including Moody (1872), Van der Weyde (1911), Lewis (1947), and more recently, Smith & Rickards (2007).


title: Thomas Paine

text: In 2018, the Thomas Paine National Historical Association introduced an early draft of the Declaration that contained evidence of Paine's involvement based on an inscription of "T.P." on the back of the document. During the early deliberations of the Committee of Five members chosen by Congress to draft the Declaration of Independence, John Adams made a hastily written manuscript copy of the original draft of the Declaration of Independence on June 24, 1776, known as the Sherman Copy. Adams made this copy shortly before preparing another neater, fair copy that is held in the Adams Family Papers collection at the Massachusetts Historical Society. The Sherman copy of the Declaration of Independence is one of several working drafts of the Declaration, made for Roger Sherman's review and approval before the Committee of Five submitted a finalized draft to Congress. The Sherman Copy of the Declaration of Independence contains an inscription on the back of the document that states: "A beginning perhaps-Original with Jefferson-Copied from Original with T.P.'s permission." According to the Thomas Paine National Historical Association, the individual referenced as "T.P." in the inscription appears to be Thomas Paine.


title: Thomas Paine

text: The degree to which Paine was involved in formulating the text of the Declaration is unclear, as the original draft referenced in the Sherman Copy inscription is presumed lost or destroyed. However, John Adams' request for permission of "T.P." to copy the original draft may suggest that Paine had a role either assisting Jefferson with organizing ideas within the Declaration, or contributing to the text of the original draft itself.


title: Thomas Paine

text: In late 1776, Paine published "The American Crisis" pamphlet series to inspire the Americans in their battles against the British army. He juxtaposed the conflict between the good American devoted to civic virtue and the selfish provincial man. To inspire his soldiers, General George Washington had "The American Crisis", first "Crisis" pamphlet, read aloud to them. It begins:


title: Thomas Paine

text: In 1777, Paine became secretary of the Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs. The following year, he alluded to secret negotiation underway with France in his pamphlets. His enemies denounced his indiscretions. There was scandal; together with Paine's conflict with Robert Morris and Silas Deane it led to Paine's expulsion from the Committee in 1779.


title: Thomas Paine

text: However, in 1781, he accompanied John Laurens on his mission to France. Eventually, after much pleading from Paine, New York State recognized his political services by presenting him with an estate at New Rochelle, New York and Paine received money from Pennsylvania and from Congress at Washington's suggestion. During the Revolutionary War, Paine served as an aide-de-camp to the important general, Nathanael Greene.


title: Thomas Paine

text: In what may have been an error, and perhaps even contributed to his resignation as the secretary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs, Paine was openly critical of Silas Deane, an American diplomat who had been appointed in March 1776 by the Congress to travel to France in secret. Deane's goal was to influence the French government to finance the colonists in their fight for independence. Paine largely saw Deane as a war profiteer who had little respect for principle, having been under the employ of Robert Morris, one of the primary financiers of the American Revolution and working with Pierre Beaumarchais, a French royal agent sent to the colonies by King Louis to investigate the Anglo-American conflict. Paine uncovered the financial connection between Morris, who was Superintendent for Finance of the Continental Congress, and Deane. Paine labeled Deane as unpatriotic, and demanded that there be a public investigation into Morris' financing of the Revolution, as he had contracted with his own company for around $500,000.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Wealthy men, such as Robert Morris, John Jay and powerful merchant bankers, were leaders of the Continental Congress and defended holding public positions while at the same time profiting off their own personal financial dealings with governments. Amongst Paine's criticisms, he had written in the "Pennsylvania Packet" that France had ""prefaced [their] alliance by an early and generous friendship"," referring to aid that had been provided to American colonies prior to the recognition of the Franco-American treaties. This was alleged to be effectively an embarrassment to France, which potentially could have jeopardized the alliance. John Jay, the President of the Congress, who had been a fervent supporter of Deane, immediately spoke out against Paine's comments. The controversy eventually became public, and Paine was then denounced as unpatriotic for criticizing an American revolutionary. He was even physically assaulted twice in the street by Deane supporters. This much-added stress took a large toll on Paine, who was generally of a sensitive character and he resigned as secretary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs in 1779. Paine left the Committee without even having enough money to buy food for himself.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Much later, when Paine returned from his mission to France, Deane's corruption had become more widely acknowledged. Many, including Robert Morris, apologized to Paine and Paine's reputation in Philadelphia was restored.


title: Thomas Paine

text: In 1780, Paine published a pamphlet entitled "Public Good," in which he made the case that territories west of the 13 colonies that had been part of the British Empire belonged after the Declaration of Independence to the American government, and did not belong to any of the 13 states or to any individual speculators. A royal charter of 1609 had granted to the Virginia Company land stretching to the Pacific Ocean. A small group of wealthy Virginia land speculators, including the Washington, Lee, and Randolph families, had taken advantage of this royal charter to survey and to claim title to huge swaths of land, including much land west of the 13 colonies. In "Public Good," Paine argued that these lands belonged to the American government as represented by the Continental Congress. This angered many of Paine's wealthy Virginia friends, including Richard Henry Lee of the powerful Lee family, who had been Paine's closest ally in Congress, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, all of whom had claims to huge wild tracts that Paine was advocating should be government owned. The view that Paine had advocated eventually prevailed when the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 was passed.


title: Thomas Paine

text: The animosity Paine felt as a result of the publication of "Public Good" fueled his decision to embark with Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens on a mission to travel to Paris to obtain funding for the American war effort.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Paine accompanied Col. John Laurens to France and is credited with initiating the mission. It landed in France in March 1781 and returned to America in August with 2.5 million livres in silver, as part of a "present" of 6 million and a loan of 10 million. The meetings with the French king were most likely conducted in the company and under the influence of Benjamin Franklin. Upon returning to the United States with this highly welcomed cargo, Thomas Paine and probably Col. Laurens, "positively objected" that General Washington should propose that Congress remunerate him for his services, for fear of setting "a bad precedent and an improper mode". Paine made influential acquaintances in Paris and helped organize the Bank of North America to raise money to supply the army. In 1785, he was given $3,000 by the U.S. Congress in recognition of his service to the nation.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Henry Laurens (father of Col. John Laurens) had been the ambassador to the Netherlands, but he was captured by the British on his return trip there. When he was later exchanged for the prisoner Lord Cornwallis in late 1781, Paine proceeded to the Netherlands to continue the loan negotiations. There remains some question as to the relationship of Henry Laurens and Thomas Paine to Robert Morris as the Superintendent of Finance and his business associate Thomas Willing who became the first president of the Bank of North America in January 1782. They had accused Morris of profiteering in 1779 and Willing had voted against the Declaration of Independence. Although Morris did much to restore his reputation in 1780 and 1781, the credit for obtaining these critical loans to "organize" the Bank of North America for approval by Congress in December 1781 should go to Henry or John Laurens and Thomas Paine more than to Robert Morris.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Paine bought his only house in 1783 on the corner of Farnsworth Avenue and Church Streets in Bordentown City, New Jersey and he lived in it periodically until his death in 1809. This is the only place in the world where Paine purchased real estate. In 1785, Paine was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society.


title: Thomas Paine

text: In 1787, a bridge of Paine's design was built across the Schuylkill River at Philadelphia. At this time his work on single-arch iron bridges led him back to Paris, France. Because Paine had few friends when arriving in France aside from Lafayette and Jefferson, he continued to correspond heavily with Benjamin Franklin, a long time friend and mentor. Franklin provided letters of introduction for Paine to use to gain associates and contacts in France.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Later that year, Paine returned to London from Paris. He then released a pamphlet on August 20 called "Prospects on the Rubicon: or, an investigation into the Causes and Consequences of the Politics to be Agitated at the Meeting of Parliament". Tensions between England and France were increasing, and this pamphlet urged the British Ministry to reconsider the consequences of war with France. Paine sought to turn the public opinion against the war to create better relations between the countries, avoid the taxes of war upon the citizens, and not engage in a war he believed would ruin both nations.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Back in London by 1787, Paine would become engrossed in the French Revolution that began two years later, and decided to travel to France in 1790. Meanwhile, conservative intellectual Edmund Burke launched a counterrevolutionary blast against the French Revolution, entitled "Reflections on the Revolution in France" (1790), which strongly appealed to the landed class, and sold 30,000 copies. Paine set out to refute it in his "Rights of Man" (1791). He wrote it not as a quick pamphlet, but as a long, abstract political tract of 90,000 words which tore apart monarchies and traditional social institutions. On January 31, 1791, he gave the manuscript to publisher Joseph Johnson. A visit by government agents dissuaded Johnson, so Paine gave the book to publisher J. S. Jordan, then went to Paris, on William Blake's advice. He charged three good friends, William Godwin, Thomas Brand Hollis, and Thomas Holcroft, with handling publication details. The book appeared on March 13, 1791, and sold nearly a million copies. It was "eagerly read by reformers, Protestant dissenters, democrats, London craftsmen, and the skilled factory-hands of the new industrial north".


title: Thomas Paine

text: Undeterred by the government campaign to discredit him, Paine issued his "Rights of Man, Part the Second, Combining Principle and Practice" in February 1792. It detailed a representative government with enumerated social programs to remedy the numbing poverty of commoners through progressive tax measures. Radically reduced in price to ensure unprecedented circulation, it was sensational in its impact and gave birth to reform societies. An indictment for seditious libel followed, for both publisher and author, while government agents followed Paine and instigated mobs, hate meetings, and burnings in effigy. A fierce pamphlet war also resulted, in which Paine was defended and assailed in dozens of works. The authorities aimed, with ultimate success, to chase Paine out of Great Britain. He was then tried "in absentia" and found guilty, although never executed. The French translation of "Rights of Man, Part II" was published in April 1792. The translator, François Lanthenas, eliminated the dedication to Lafayette, as he believed Paine thought too highly of Lafayette, who was seen as a royalist sympathizer at the time.


title: Thomas Paine

text: In summer of 1792, he answered the sedition and libel charges thus: "If, to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy ... to promote universal peace, civilization, and commerce, and to break the chains of political superstition, and raise degraded man to his proper rank; if these things be libellous ... let the name of libeller be engraved on my tomb."


title: Thomas Paine

text: Paine was an enthusiastic supporter of the French Revolution, and was granted honorary French citizenship alongside prominent contemporaries such as Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and others. Paine's honorary citizenship was in recognition of the publishing of his "Rights of Man, Part II" and the sensation it created within France. Despite his inability to speak French, he was elected to the National Convention, representing the district of Pas-de-Calais.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Several weeks after his election to the National Convention, Paine was selected as one of nine deputies to be part of the Convention's Constitutional Committee, who were charged to draft a suitable constitution for the French Republic. He subsequentially participated in the Constitutional Committee in drafting the Girondin constitutional project. He voted for the French Republic, but argued against the execution of Louis XVI, saying the monarch should instead be exiled to the United States: firstly, because of the way royalist France had come to the aid of the American Revolution; and secondly, because of a moral objection to capital punishment in general and to revenge killings in particular. However, Paine's speech in defense of Louis XVI was interrupted by Jean-Paul Marat, who claimed that as a Quaker, Paine's religious beliefs ran counter to inflicting capital punishment and thus he should be ineligible to vote. Marat interrupted a second time, stating that the translator was deceiving the convention by distorting the meanings of Paine's words, prompting Paine to provide a copy of the speech as proof that he was being correctly translated.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Regarded as an ally of the Girondins, he was seen with increasing disfavor by the Montagnards, who were now in power; and in particular by Maximilien Robespierre. A decree was passed at the end of 1793 excluding foreigners from their places in the Convention (Anacharsis Cloots was also deprived of his place). Paine was arrested and imprisoned in December 1793.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Paine wrote the second part of "Rights of Man" on a desk in Thomas 'Clio' Rickman's house, with whom he was staying in 1792 before he fled to France. This desk is currently on display in the People's History Museum in Manchester.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Paine was arrested in France on December 28, 1793. Joel Barlow was unsuccessful in securing Paine's release by circulating a petition among American residents in Paris. Sixteen American citizens were allowed to plead for Paine's release to the Convention, yet President Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier of the Committee of General Security refused to acknowledge Paine's American citizenship, stating he was an Englishman and a citizen of a country at war with France.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Paine himself protested and claimed that he was a citizen of the U.S., which was an ally of Revolutionary France, rather than of Great Britain, which was by that time at war with France. However, Gouverneur Morris, the American minister to France, did not press his claim, and Paine later wrote that Morris had connived at his imprisonment. Paine narrowly escaped execution. A chalk mark was supposed to be left by the gaoler on the door of a cell to denote that the prisoner inside was due to be removed for execution. In Paine's case, the mark had accidentally been made on the inside of his door rather than the outside; this was due to the fact that the door of Paine's cell had been left open whilst the gaoler was making his rounds that day, since Paine had been receiving official visitors. But for this quirk of fate, Paine would have been executed the following morning. He kept his head and survived the few vital days needed to be spared by the fall of Robespierre on 9 Thermidor (July 27, 1794).


title: Thomas Paine

text: Paine was released in November 1794 largely because of the work of the new American Minister to France, James Monroe, who successfully argued the case for Paine's American citizenship. In July 1795, he was re-admitted into the Convention, as were other surviving Girondins. Paine was one of only three députés to oppose the adoption of the new 1795 constitution because it eliminated universal suffrage, which had been proclaimed by the Montagnard Constitution of 1793.


title: Thomas Paine

text: In 1796, a bridge he designed was erected over the mouth of the Wear River at Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, England. This bridge, the Sunderland arch, was after the same design as his Schuylkill River Bridge in Philadelphia and it became the prototype for many subsequent voussoir arches made in iron and steel.


title: Thomas Paine

text: In addition to receiving a British patent for the single-span iron bridge, Paine developed a smokeless candle and worked with inventor John Fitch in developing steam engines.


title: Thomas Paine

text: In 1797, Paine lived in Paris with Nicholas Bonneville and his wife. As well as Bonneville's other controversial guests, Paine aroused the suspicions of authorities. Bonneville hid the Royalist Antoine Joseph Barruel-Beauvert at his home. Beauvert had been outlawed following the coup of 18 Fructidor on September 4, 1797. Paine believed that the United States under President John Adams had betrayed revolutionary France. Bonneville was then briefly jailed and his presses were confiscated, which meant financial ruin.


title: Thomas Paine

text: In 1800, still under police surveillance, Bonneville took refuge with his father in Evreux. Paine stayed on with him, helping Bonneville with the burden of translating the "Covenant Sea". The same year, Paine purportedly had a meeting with Napoleon. Napoleon claimed he slept with a copy of "Rights of Man" under his pillow and went so far as to say to Paine that "a statue of gold should be erected to you in every city in the universe". Paine discussed with Napoleon how best to invade England. In December 1797, he wrote two essays, one of which was pointedly named "Observations on the Construction and Operation of Navies with a Plan for an Invasion of England and the Final Overthrow of the English Government", in which he promoted the idea to finance 1,000 gunboats to carry a French invading army across the English Channel. In 1804, Paine returned to the subject, writing "To the People of England on the Invasion of England" advocating the idea. However, upon noting Napoleon's progress towards dictatorship, he condemned him as "the completest charlatan that ever existed". Paine remained in France until 1802, returning to the United States only at President Jefferson's invitation.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Upset that U.S. President George Washington, a friend since the Revolutionary War, did nothing during Paine's imprisonment in France, Paine believed Washington had betrayed him and conspired with Robespierre. While staying with Monroe, Paine planned to send Washington a letter of grievance on the president's birthday. Monroe stopped the letter from being sent, and after Paine's criticism of the Jay Treaty, which was supported by Washington, Monroe suggested that Paine live elsewhere.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Paine then sent a stinging letter to George Washington, in which he described him as an incompetent commander and a vain and ungrateful person. Having received no response, Paine contacted his longtime publisher Benjamin Bache, the Jeffersonian democrat, to publish his "Letter to George Washington" of 1796 in which he derided Washington's reputation by describing him as a treacherous man who was unworthy of his fame as a military and political hero. Paine wrote that "the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles or whether you ever had any". He declared that without France's aid Washington could not have succeeded in the American Revolution and had "but little share in the glory of the final event". He also commented on Washington's character, saying that Washington had no sympathetic feelings and was a hypocrite.


title: Thomas Paine

text: In 1802 or 1803, Paine left France for the United States, also paying the passage for Bonneville's wife Marguerite Brazier and the couple's three sons, Benjamin, Louis and Thomas Bonneville, to whom Paine was godfather. Paine returned to the United States in the early stages of the Second Great Awakening and a time of great political partisanship. The "Age of Reason" gave ample excuse for the religiously devout to dislike him, while the Federalists attacked him for his ideas of government stated in "Common Sense," for his association with the French Revolution, and for his friendship with President Jefferson. Also still fresh in the minds of the public was his "Letter to Washington," published six years before his return. This was compounded when his right to vote was denied in New Rochelle on the grounds that Gouverneur Morris did not recognize him as an American and Washington had not aided him.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Brazier took care of Paine at the end of his life and buried him after his death. In his will, Paine left the bulk of his estate to Marguerite, including 100 acres (40.5 ha) of his farm so she could maintain and educate Benjamin and his brother Thomas. In 1814, the fall of Napoleon finally allowed Bonneville to rejoin his wife in the United States where he remained for four years before returning to Paris to open a bookshop.


title: Thomas Paine

text: On the morning of June 8, 1809, Paine died, aged 72, at 59 Grove Street in Greenwich Village, New York City. Although the original building no longer exists, the present building has a plaque noting that Paine died at this location.


title: Thomas Paine

text: After his death, Paine's body was brought to New Rochelle, but the Quakers would not allow it to be buried in their graveyard as per his last will, so his remains were buried under a walnut tree on his farm. In 1819, English agrarian radical journalist William Cobbett, who in 1793 had published a hostile continuation of Francis Oldys (George Chalmer)'s "The Life of Thomas Paine", dug up his bones and transported them back to England with the intention to give Paine a heroic reburial on his native soil, but this never came to pass. The bones were still among Cobbett's effects when he died over fifteen years later, but were later lost. There is no confirmed story about what happened to them after that, although various people have claimed throughout the years to own parts of Paine's remains, such as his skull and right hand.


title: Thomas Paine

text: At the time of his death, most American newspapers reprinted the obituary notice from the "New York Evening Post" that was in turn quoting from "The American Citizen", which read in part: "He had lived long, did some good, and much harm". Only six mourners came to his funeral, two of whom were black, most likely freedmen. Months later appeared a hostile biography by James Cheetham, who had admired him since the latter's days as a young radical in Manchester, and who had been friends with Paine for a short time before the two fell out. Many years later the writer and orator Robert G. Ingersoll wrote:


title: Thomas Paine

text: Biographer Eric Foner identifies a utopian thread in Paine's thought, writing: "Through this new language he communicated a new visiona utopian image of an egalitarian, republican society".


title: Thomas Paine

text: Paine's utopianism combined civic republicanism, belief in the inevitability of scientific and social progress and commitment to free markets and liberty generally. The multiple sources of Paine's political theory all pointed to a society based on the common good and individualism. Paine expressed a redemptive futurism or political messianism. Writing that his generation "would appear to the future as the Adam of a new world", Paine exemplified British utopianism.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Later, his encounters with the Indigenous peoples of the Americas made a deep impression. The ability of the Iroquois to live in harmony with nature while achieving a democratic decision-making process helped him refine his thinking on how to organize society.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Paine was an strong critic of slavery, declaring himself an abolitionist. As secretary to the Pennsylvania legislature, he helped draft legislation to outlaw trade in slaves. Paine's statement "Man has no property in man", although deployed by Paine in "Rights of Man" to deny the right of any generation to bind future ones, has also been interpreted as an argument against slavery. In the book, Paine also describes his mission, among other things, as to "break the chains of slavery and oppression".


title: Thomas Paine

text: On March 8, 1775, one month after Paine became the editor of "The Pennsylvania Magazine", the magazine published an anonymous article titled "African Slavery in America," the first prominent piece in the colonies proposing the emancipation of African-American slaves and the abolition of slavery. Paine is often credited with writing the piece, on the basis of later testimony by Benjamin Rush, cosigner of the Declaration of Independence. Citing a lack of further evidence of Paine's authorship, however, scholars Foner and Alfred Owen Aldridge no longer consider it to be one of his works.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Paine, together with Joel Barlow, unsuccessfully tried to convince President Thomas Jefferson to not import the institution of slavery to the territory acquired in the Louisiana Purchase, suggesting he rather settle it with free Black families and German immigrants.


title: Thomas Paine

text: In his "Rights of Man, Part Second", Paine advocated a comprehensive program of state support for the population to ensure the welfare of society, including state subsidy for poor people, state-financed universal public education, and state-sponsored prenatal care and postnatal care, including state subsidies to families at childbirth. Recognizing that a person's "labor ought to be over" before old age, Paine also called for a state pension to all workers starting at age 50, which would be doubled at age 60.


title: Thomas Paine

text: His last pamphlet, "Agrarian Justice", published in the winter of 1795, opposed agrarian law and agrarian monopoly and further developed his ideas in the "Rights of Man" about how land ownership separated the majority of people from their rightful, natural inheritance and means of independent survival. The U.S. Social Security Administration recognizes "Agrarian Justice" as the first American proposal for an old-age pension and basic income or citizen's dividend. Per "Agrarian Justice":


title: Thomas Paine

text: In advocating the case of the persons thus dispossessed, it is a right, and not a charity ... [Government must] create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property. And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age.


title: Thomas Paine

text: In 2011, £10 and £15 would be worth about £800 and £1,200 ($1,200 and $2,000) when adjusted for inflation.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Lamb argues that Paine's analysis of property rights marks a distinct contribution to political theory. His theory of property defends a libertarian concern with private ownership that shows an egalitarian commitment. Paine's new justification of property sets him apart from previous theorists such as Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf and John Locke. Lamb says it demonstrates Paine's commitment to foundational liberal values of individual freedom and moral equality. In response to Paine's "Agrarian Justice", Thomas Spence wrote "The Rights of Infants" wherein Spence argues that Paine's plan was not beneficial to impoverished people because landlords would just keep raising land prices, further enriching themselves rather than giving the commonwealth an equal chance.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Before his arrest and imprisonment in France, knowing that he would probably be arrested and executed, following in the tradition of early 18th-century British Deism Paine wrote the first part of "The Age of Reason" (1793–1794). Paine's religious views as expressed in "The Age of Reason" caused quite a stir in religious society, effectively splitting the religious groups into two major factions: those who wanted church disestablishment, and the Christians who wanted Christianity to continue having a strong social influence.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Though there is no evidence Paine himself was a Freemason, upon his return to America from France he penned "An Essay on the Origin of Free-Masonry" (1803–1805) about Freemasonry being derived from the religion of the ancient Druids. Marguerite de Bonneville published the essay in 1810 after Paine's death, but she chose to omit certain passages from it that were critical of Christianity, most of which were restored in an 1818 printing. In the essay, Paine stated that "the Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the Sun, in which they put a man whom they call Christ, in the place of the Sun, and pay him the same adoration which was originally paid to the Sun." Paine also had a negative attitude toward Judaism. While never describing himself as a Deist, he openly advocated Deism in his writings, and called Deism "the only true religion":The opinions I have advanced ... are the effect of the most clear and long-established conviction that the Bible and the Testament are impositions upon the world, that the fall of man, the account of Jesus Christ being the Son of God, and of his dying to appease the wrath of God, and of salvation, by that strange means, are all fabulous inventions, dishonorable to the wisdom and power of the Almighty; that the only true religion is Deism, by which I then meant, and mean now, the belief of one God, and an imitation of his moral character, or the practice of what are called moral virtuesand that it was upon this only (so far as religion is concerned) that I rested all my hopes of happiness hereafter. So say I nowand so help me God.


title: Thomas Paine

text: Harvey J. Kaye wrote that through Paine, through his pamphlets and catchphrases such as "The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth," "We have it in our power to begin the world over again," and "These are the times that try men's souls" did more than move Americans to declare their independence:


title: Thomas Paine

text: John Stevenson argues that in the early 1790s, numerous radical political societies were formed throughout England and Wales in which Paine's writings provided "a boost to the self-confidence of those seeking to participate in politics for the first time." In its immediate effects, Gary Kates argues, "Paine's vision unified Philadelphia merchants, British artisans, French peasants, Dutch reformers, and radical intellectuals from Boston to Berlin in one great movement."


title: Thomas Paine

text: His writings in the long term inspired philosophic and working-class radicals in Britain and United States. Liberals, libertarians, left-libertarians, feminists, democratic socialists, social democrats, anarchists, free thinkers and progressives often claim him as an intellectual ancestor. Paine's critique of institutionalized religion and advocacy of rational thinking influenced many British freethinkers in the 19th and 20th centuries, such as William Cobbett, George Holyoake, Charles Bradlaugh, Christopher Hitchens and Bertrand Russell.


title: Thomas Paine

text: The quote "Lead, follow, or get out of the way" is widely but incorrectly attributed to Paine. It can be found nowhere in his published works.


title: Thomas Paine

text: In 1835, when he was 26 years old, Abraham Lincoln wrote a defense of Paine's deism. A political associate, Samuel Hill, burned the manuscript to save Lincoln's political career. Historian Roy Basler, the editor of Lincoln's papers, said Paine had a strong influence on Lincoln's style:


title: Thomas Paine

text: No other writer of the eighteenth century, with the exception of Jefferson, parallels more closely the temper or gist of Lincoln's later thought. In style, Paine above all others affords the variety of eloquence which, chastened and adapted to Lincoln's own mood, is revealed in Lincoln's formal writings.


title: Thomas Paine

text: I have always regarded Paine as one of the greatest of all Americans. Never have we had a sounder intelligence in this republic... It was my good fortune to encounter Thomas Paine's works in my boyhood... it was, indeed, a revelation to me to read that great thinker's views on political and theological subjects. Paine educated me, then, about many matters of which I had never before thought. I remember, very vividly, the flash of enlightenment that shone from Paine's writings, and I recall thinking, at that time, 'What a pity these works are not today the schoolbooks for all children!' My interest in Paine was not satisfied by my first reading of his works. I went back to them time and again, just as I have done since my boyhood days.


title: Thomas Paine

text: In 1811, Venezuelan translator Manuel Garcia de Sena published a book in Philadelphia that consisted mostly of Spanish translations of several of Paine's most important works. The book also included translations of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the U.S. Constitution and the constitutions of five U.S. states.


title: Thomas Paine

text: It subsequently circulated widely in South America and through it Uruguayan national hero José Gervasio Artigas became familiar with and embraced Paine's ideas. In turn, many of Artigas's writings drew directly from Paine's, including the "Instructions of 1813", which Uruguayans consider to be one of their country's most important constitutional documents, and was one of the earliest writings to articulate a principled basis for an identity independent of Buenos Aires.


title: Thomas Paine

text: The first and longest-standing memorial to Paine is the carved and inscribed 12-foot marble column in New Rochelle, New York, organized and funded by publisher, educator and reformer Gilbert Vale (1791–1866) and raised in 1839 by the American sculptor and architect John Frazee, the Thomas Paine Monument (see image below).


title: Thomas Paine

text: New Rochelle is also the original site of Thomas Paine's Cottage, which along with a 320-acre (130 ha) farm were presented to Paine in 1784 by act of the New York State Legislature for his services in the American Revolution. The same site is the home of the Thomas Paine Memorial Museum.


title: Thomas Paine

text: In the 20th century, Joseph Lewis, longtime president of the Freethinkers of America and an ardent Paine admirer, was instrumental in having larger-than-life-sized statues of Paine erected in each of the three countries with which the revolutionary writer was associated. The first, created by Mount Rushmore sculptor Gutzon Borglum, was erected in the Parc Montsouris, Paris, just before World War II began but not formally dedicated until 1948. It depicts Paine standing before the French National Convention to plead for the life of King Louis XVI. The second, sculpted in 1950 by Georg J. Lober, was erected near Paine's one time home in Morristown, New Jersey. It shows a seated Paine using a drum-head as a makeshift table. The third, sculpted by Sir Charles Wheeler, President of the Royal Academy, was erected in 1964 in Paine's birthplace, Thetford, England. With a quill pen in his right hand and an inverted copy of "The Rights of Man" in his left, it occupies a prominent spot on King Street. Thomas Paine was ranked No. 34 in the "100 Greatest Britons" 2002 extensive Nationwide poll conducted by the BBC.


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: Everest is a 2015 biographical survival adventure film directed and produced by Baltasar Kormákur and written by William Nicholson and Simon Beaufoy. It stars an ensemble cast of Jason Clarke, Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Brolin, John Hawkes, Robin Wright, Michael Kelly, Sam Worthington, Keira Knightley, Martin Henderson and Emily Watson. It is based on the real events of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, and focuses on the survival attempts of two expedition groups, one led by Rob Hall (Clarke) and the other by Scott Fischer (Gyllenhaal).


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: The film opened the 72nd Venice International Film Festival on September 2, 2015, and released theatrically on September 18, 2015. It was first released in IMAX 3D on September 11, 2015, in the UK and in IMAX 3D, RealD 3D, and 2D internationally, and exclusively in IMAX 3D, September 19, 2015 as a limited release in the United States and Canada, and along 36 other countries. It began a wide release in the United States on September 25, 2015. The film was a commercial success—it grossed $203 million worldwide over a $55 million budget and received positive reviews from critics.


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: In May 1996, several commercial expeditions at the base camp of Mount Everest prepare to climb to the summit. Rob Hall, who popularized commercial Everest missions, leads Adventure Consultants; Scott Fischer is the chief guide for its rival, Mountain Madness. Rob's clients include Beck Weathers, an experienced climber; Doug Hansen, a former mailman pursuing his dream; climbing veteran Yasuko Namba, who hopes to complete her final Seven Summits ascent; and "Outside" magazine journalist Jon Krakauer. Helen Wilton manages Rob's base camp. A month earlier in New Zealand, Rob says goodbye to his pregnant wife, Jan, and promises that he will be home for the birth. At the base camp, Rob receives a fax from her, informing him that their unborn baby is a girl. He wants to name her Sarah, but Jan disagrees.


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: Worried about climbers overcrowding, Rob persuades Scott to cooperate to reduce delays. On the summit attempt, Rob's group departs from Camp IV before dawn, planning to complete the ascent and begin descending by 2:00 PM., the latest safe time to ensure return before nightfall. The group is delayed by over an hour after discovering that guide ropes are not installed on the upper reaches of the climb. Beck has eyesight problems and stops. Rob tells him to return to base camp if his condition does not improve in a half-hour. Scott hurries down to camp to help another climber, but plans to re-ascend, and Rob warns him about overexertion.


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: Rob reaches the summit on time and is joined by other climbers including Yasuko, who jubilantly plants her Japanese flag. Descending, Rob encounters Doug struggling to ascend just above the Hillary Step and orders him to descend. Doug insists on continuing, saying that he will not get the chance again. Rob reluctantly agrees and they reach the summit two hours later, well past the safe return time. Doug is exhausted and suffering from altitude sickness. With them is Scott, exhausted and ill from high-altitude pulmonary edema. As Rob helps Doug descend, a blizzard strikes while Doug's oxygen tank is empty, causing him to suffer hypoxia. No extra bottles are stored on the route as Rob asked and he radios Helen to send more oxygen. Doug, left briefly by Rob, semi-consciously detaches himself from the guide rope and walks unsteadily along the narrow path, then silently topples to his death.


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: Scott's condition worsens. He tells his fellow climbers to continue descending without him. He lies down and later dies. Descending climbers reach Beck, whose vision remains impaired, but they all become lost as the blizzard obliterates the trail. Three climbers go for help, leaving Beck and Yasuko. Guide Andy 'Harold' Harris reaches Rob with spare oxygen, but the cylinder aperture is frozen shut. They huddle together in the storm. While Rob sleeps, Andy begins to have hallucinations. He then strips off his outer clothing and slides to his death. In the morning, Rob radios Helen that Doug and Andy are gone, and that his extremities are frozen. Helen calls Jan, hoping that Rob will respond to her voice. Jan tells Rob that he must start moving. Rob tells her that he is cold but otherwise comfortable, and asks her to name their baby Sarah, dying soon afterwards.


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: Returning climbers tell the camp that Beck and Yasuko are stranded. The weather, however, makes a rescue impossible. Helen calls Beck's wife, Peach, and informs her of the situation. In the morning, Beck miraculously awakens, sees that Yasuko is dead, and stumbles down to camp alone, severely frostbitten and in need of medical help. Peach calls the American Embassy and organizes a helicopter rescue. Nepal Army pilot Lt. Col. Madan Khatri Chhetri flies a high altitude mission to take Beck to hospital. Meanwhile, one of Scott's guides, Anatoli, finds his body, and moves it off the trail. Returning home, Helen has an emotional reunion with Jan, who later gives birth and names her daughter Sarah. Beck returns to his family, heavily bandaged. Closing titles reveal that he eventually lost both hands and nose to frostbite, and that Rob's body remains on Everest.


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: Baltasar Kormákur directed the film which was scripted by Simon Beaufoy and Mark Medoff, with early script adaptations carried out by Justin Isbell and William Nicholson. The film was produced by Working Title Films. Universal Pictures distributed the film in the United States. The film was produced by Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, and started shooting in November 2013. In September 2013, Emmett/Furla/Oasis Films were set to co-finance the film, but in October they exited as co-financiers.


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: After the production start date of 6 November 2013 had passed, Cross Creek Pictures and Walden Media joined the production on 12 November 2013, and financed the film with $65 million. The film started production on 13 January 2014, in the Ötztal Alps in Italy, after which production moved to Nepal and Iceland. On 11 December 2013, "The Hollywood Reporter" posted that South Tyrol's regional film board added $1 million to the film's funding.


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: In February 2013, Christian Bale was in talks to join the cast of the disaster film to play Rob Hall, the leader of a New Zealand group who ran Adventure Consultants. On 17 July, Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Brolin, Jason Clarke and John Hawkes were cast as leads in the film. Bale dropped out around this time. Gyllenhaal played Scott Fischer, the leader of the Mountain Madness expedition; Brolin played Beck Weathers, a doctor; Clarke took the role of Rob Hall, also an expedition leader; and Hawkes played Doug Hansen, one of Rob Hall's clients, who encounters difficulties on the descent from the summit of Everest.


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: On 4 February 2014, Clive Standen also joined the cast, while shooting was underway. On 7 February 2014, more cast was added to the film, including Martin Henderson, Emily Watson, Thomas M. Wright, and Michael Kelly. Watson played a motherly base camp figure who works closely with Rob Hall, and Kelly played "Into Thin Air" author Jon Krakauer. On 17 February, actor Micah Hauptman was added to the cast in the role of filmmaker and mountaineer David Breashears, who directed the 1998 IMAX documentary film "Everest". On 24 March 2014, Sam Worthington and Robin Wright joined the cast. Worthington played Guy Cotter and Wright played Beck Weathers' wife, Peach.


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: In November 2013, the film was set for a 13 January 2014 production start date in Italy. Co-financier Brian Oliver told "Variety" they would shoot in Ötztal Alps in Italy for six weeks, a month in Iceland, and then move to Nepal for another month's shoot. In early January 2014, actors Gyllenhaal and Brolin were practicing for climbing mountains in the Santa Monica Mountains, to train for their roles.


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: The 44-member crew arrived on 12 January 2014 in Nepal and stayed in Kathmandu. They had permission to film from 9 to 23 January. Later filming on "Everest" commenced on 13 January 2014. On 14 January, Brolin and Hawkes filmed shots at local terminal of Tribhuvan International Airport, and then they were to be filming at Lukla Airport on 15 January, then to Namche Bazaar, and later at the Everest Base Camp, news confirmed. After shooting completed in Nepal, the crews were to move to Italy (Schnalstal and Rome), and then in early March to the United Kingdom, to film at Pinewood Studios.


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: English actor Clive Standen has said that filming on location in freezing temperatures has been "tough but fun". On 24 March 2014 the shooting was said to be taking place at the Everest Base Camp in Nepal. Base camp exteriors were filmed on the backlot at Cinecitta Studios in Rome, where bright sunlight could be achieved to resemble the lighting at base camp.


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: On 18 April 2014, while the second unit crew was shooting remaining scenes of the film at Camp II on Everest, an avalanche struck, killing 16 Sherpa guides. The Sherpas were carrying equipment and supplies to camps for climbers in advance of the start of the summer climbing season. "Deadline" reported there were no injuries or fatalities affecting the film crew. The production was not present where the disaster took place, but they were nearby. Filming at Pinewood Studios in England was just about to finish up, but the second unit was shooting at the camp which then had to halt the production for some time. Hillary Step, camp 4, icefall and the summit were built on the 007 stage at Pinewood Studios with greenscreen for CG backgrounds. Totino said, "It was very challenging because we had to re-create the sun, which at Everest is so incredibly sharp and crisp." The team used SoftSun lights for creating sun on the summit, Hillary Step and icefall. "They were 9 feet long and 3 ½ feet in diameter and 100,000 watts. They had to be moved around on cranes because they are very heavy," Totino said. To photograph one scene during which expedition guide Rob Hall (Jason Clarke) is stuck on the mountain in the storm, Totino recalled: "We tented off a portion of the set with some very heavy plastic and brought in these giant refrigerating units, half the size of a semi truck, and we cooled that part of the stage down to about 26 to 28 degrees Fahrenheit [around -3°C] and brought in real snow. Baltasar really wanted the actor to feel like he was frozen. You really see and feel that." The film was shot with Arri Alexa XT cameras, using the Arriraw format.


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: Dario Marianelli composed the music for the film. The film uses the song "Yeh ladka hai Allah" from the Bollywood film "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham" (2001), when the climbing party first arrives in Nepal. The song plays in the bus when it passes through a busy Nepali bazaar. Another song in the film is "All I Wanna Do", performed by Sheryl Crow, which is accurate to the timing of the film's events, in 1996. The song "Weather with You" by Crowded House also features in the film. The soundtrack was released on 18 September 2015 by Varèse Sarabande.


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: Universal Pictures had originally slated the film for a 27 February 2015 release date in the United States and Canada. However, the film was released on 18 September 2015 exclusively in IMAX 3D, followed by a wide theatrical release on 25 September 2015. In the US and Canada, it was released in Dolby Vision format in Dolby Cinema, the first ever for Universal Pictures. It was screened at the 2015 CineEurope on 23 June 2015 at the Centre Convencions Internacional Barcelona in full 3D Dolby Atmos. The film's world premiere took place on 2 September 2015 at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival in the Sala Grande, at the city's Palazzo del Cinema in Venice. DVD, Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D versions were released on 19 January 2016. On 27 September 2016, Universal Studios Home Entertainment released a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc edition of the film.


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: "Everest" grossed $43.4 million in North America and $159.9 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $203.4 million, against a budget of $55 million. "Everest" had the biggest September worldwide IMAX opening with $7.2 million, breaking the record previously held by "" ($6 million).


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: Prior to its wide theatrical opening in the United States and Canada on 25 September, the film received a limited release in IMAX 3D and other premium large format screens across 545 theaters on 18 September in order to build good word of mouth. It made $325,000 from 481 IMAX screens and premium large-format screens from late night showings, which began at 7 pm, and an estimated $2.3 million on its opening day. It finished off the weekend at number five with $7.6 million from 368 IMAX and 177 premium large-format theaters. IMAX comprised 78% ($5.8 million) of the opening weekend gross while premium large formats contributed 22% ($1.7 million). This broke the record for the biggest IMAX September debut (breaking "The Equalizer"s $3.1 million record in 2014). "Everest" is the first major film since "" (2011) to receive IMAX only release for more than two days ("The Walk" became the next when it replaced "Everest" on 30 September 2015).


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: "Everest" expanded into a total of 3,006 theaters on Friday after a limited 3D, IMAX and other premium large formats engagement. It earned $4 million on its wide opening day on Friday. During its wide opening weekend it earned $13.09 million from 3,006 theaters of which $3.7 million came from 366 IMAX screens raising its total North America IMAX revenue to $11.5 million—the first ever September IMAX release to reach past $10 million. The largest demographic of the opening weekend audience was male (51%) and under the age of 35 (45%).


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: "Everest" was released in a total of 65 countries. In its opening weekend, it grossed $28.8 million from 5,154 screens from 36 markets opening at No. 1 in 12 countries. IMAX comprised $3 million of the opening gross. In its second weekend, it expanded to 22 more markets earning $33.9 million from 62 markets—topping the box office. Russia and the CIS posted the highest opening with $5.2 million followed by the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta ($4.9 million), Mexico ($4.4 million), Germany ($2.9 million) and Australia ($2.4 million). In terms of total earnings, the United Kingdom ($16 million) and Germany ($9.3 million) are the largest markets. It became the 8th Universal Pictures film of 2015 to cross the £10 million mark in the United Kingdom. The only other studios ever to achieve the feat are 20th Century Fox in 2014 and Paramount Pictures in 2011. It opened in China on 3 November and Japan on 6 November and grossed $11.3 million and $1.4 million respectively debuting both at No. 4 at the box office. In China notably, despite having the advantage of securing all the IMAX screens, it had to face serious competition with Hollywood counterparts such as "", "The Peanuts Movie" and four new local movies that all opened that same week. It grossed a total of $16 million in China and $5.1 million in Japan.


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of , based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's consensus reads, ""Everest" boasts all the dizzying cinematography a person could hope to get out of a movie about mountain climbers, even if it's content to tread less challenging narrative terrain." On Metacritic the film has a score of 64 out of 100, based on 39 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Everest (2015 film)

text: Jon Krakauer, author of "Into Thin Air", denounced the movie, stating some of its details were fabricated and defamatory. He also expressed regret regarding Sony's rapid acquisition of the rights to the book. Director Baltasar Kormákur responded, claiming Krakauer's first-person account was not used as source material for the film and alleging that Krakauer's version conflicted with actual events.


title: Shane McMahon

text: Shane Brandon McMahon (; born January 15, 1970) is an American businessman and professional wrestler. He is best known for his tenure in WWE, where he was a wrestler, producer and minority owner. He is the founder and executive chairman of Ideanomics, formerly Seven Stars Cloud Group.


title: Shane McMahon

text: The son of Vince McMahon, he is a fourth-generation wrestling promoter as a member of the McMahon family. He began working in WWE at age 15, starting in their warehouse, where he filled merchandise orders. McMahon was also a referee, producer, announcer, and eventually a wrestler, while also becoming WWE's Executive Vice President of Global Media behind the scenes. As a wrestler, he has won the European Championship once, the Hardcore Championship once, the SmackDown Tag Team Championship once, and the WWE World Cup in 2018.


title: Shane McMahon

text: On January 1, 2010, McMahon announced his resignation from WWE. Later that year, he became CEO of entertainment service company YOU On Demand. On July 12, 2013, McMahon stepped down as CEO of YOU On Demand and appointed Weicheng Liu as his successor, while remaining the company's principal executive officer and Vice Chairman of the Board until 2021, when McMahon was promoted to Executive Chairman. In 2016, he returned to WWE and appeared as a prominent figure for the next four years. From 2020, McMahon appeared and wrestled sporadically on television until his departure from WWE on February 2, 2022.


title: Shane McMahon

text: Shane Brandon McMahon was born on January 15, 1970 in Gaithersburg, Maryland to Vince and Linda McMahon. He has one younger sister, Stephanie McMahon. After graduating from Greenwich High School in 1987, he attended Boston University and in 1993 earned a degree in communications.


title: Shane McMahon

text: McMahon began his on-screen career as a referee named Shane Stevens. As Shane Stevens, McMahon refereed during the inaugural 1988 Royal Rumble match, and in 1990 he was the first performer to walk out to greet the audience at WrestleMania VI. McMahon soon left behind his refereeing duties and took on the role of a backstage official at WrestleMania VIII in an attempt to break up a storyline brawl between Randy Savage and Ric Flair. McMahon would then mainly work behind the scenes, launching WWF.com in 1997.


title: Shane McMahon

text: Shane McMahon made his first appearances as a regular on-air character in early 1998, when he was one of the main WWF executives negotiating with Mike Tyson during Tyson's heavily-hyped involvement in WrestleMania. He became a recurring part of his father's on-air feud with Stone Cold Steve Austin. In the early days of that angle, McMahon offered support for his father in cameo roles, but he did not become an enforcer like Gerald Brisco and Pat Patterson. McMahon was a color commentator on "Sunday Night Heat" alongside Jim Cornette and later Kevin Kelly, and announced with Jerry Lawler on the 1999 videogame "WWF Attitude". Concurrently with this, Shane took on the role as a regular character, turning on his father by signing Austin to a contract after Vince demoted him to the position of referee. Yet at Survivor Series, Shane turned heel by turning on Austin and became an official member of The Corporation.