On this day 250 years ago in London Thomas Paine was fired from his job as an exciseman (i.e., tax collector) by the British Government for attempting to organize his fellow excisemen to demand higher wages. Before the end of the year Paine would be in America and soon thereafter causing much more trouble for the British Government than he did in London.

Source: https://www.thomaspaine.org/pages/resources/foner-s-introduction-to-the-collected-works.html