1776 – Propagandist Thomas Paine anonymously published “Common Sense,” a scathing attack on King George III’s reign over the colonies and a call for complete independence. It sold more than 500,000 copies in just a few months, greatly affecting public sentiment and the deliberations of the Continental Congress leading up to the Declaration of Independence. He advocated an immediate declaration of independence from Britain. An instant bestseller in both the colonies and in Britain, Paine baldly stated that King George III was a tyrant and that Americans should shed any sentimental attachment to the monarchy. America, he argued, had a moral obligation to reject monarchy. “O! ye that love mankind! Ye that dare opposed not only the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the Old World is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted around the globe….O! receive the fugitive and prepare in time an asylum for mankind,” he urged. Within a few years, a land with a population of 2.5 million had bought 500,000 copies of Paine’s stirring call for independence.
1788 – Connecticut becomes the fifth state to be admitted to the United States. Connecticut prospered during the era following the American Revolution, as mills and textile factories were built and seaports flourished from trade and fisheries. In 1786, Connecticut ceded territory to the U.S. government that became part of the Northwest Territory. Connecticut retained land extending across the northern part of present-day Ohio, called the Connecticut Western Reserve. The Western Reserve section was settled largely by people from Connecticut, and they brought Connecticut place names to Ohio. Agreements with Pennsylvania and New York extinguished the land claims by Connecticut within its neighbors, creating the Connecticut Panhandle. Connecticut ceded the Western Reserve in 1800 to the federal government, which brought the state to its present boundaries other than minor adjustments with Massachusetts.
1789 – The governor of the Northwest Territory, General Arthur St. Clair, signs the Treaty of Fort Harmar with the Ohio Indians renewing the Treaty of Ft. McIntosh.
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