Birth Anniversary: Voltaire — November 21, 1694

Voltaire was born François-Marie Arouet in Paris on 21 November 1694, and made himself into the sharpest pen in Europe under a name of his own invention. In 1791, two years after his death, the Revolution moved his remains to the newly built Panthéon — the same building where France still buries the writers and scientists it decides to call great. He argued his way into the pantheon twice: first in print, then in stone.