Voltaire was enabled to become an old and famous aristocrat by his lottery winnings. Flickr Francois-Marie Arouet, better-remembered by his pen name “Voltaire,” was born on this day in 1694 ...

Like most bookshops around Paris, Emile, which caters to young readers, sold all its copies of Voltaire's Treatise on Tolerance on Jan. 8, the day after two gunmen stormed into satirical magazine ...