Question:
Williams was born in Nassau, The Bahamas, on November 12, 1874, to Frederick Williams Jr. and his wife Julia. At the age of 11, Bert permanently emigrated with his parents, moving to Florida. The family later moved to Riverside, California, where he graduated from Riverside High School. In 1893, while still a teenager, he joined different West Coast minstrel shows, including Martin and Selig's Mastodon Minstrels, where he first met his future professional partner, George Walker.
Walker was in ill health by this point due to syphilis, which was then incurable. In January 1909 he suffered a stroke onstage while singing, and was forced to drop out of Bandanna Land the following month. The famous pair never performed in public again, and Walker died less than two years later. Walker had been the businessman and public spokesman for the duo. His absence left Williams professionally adrift.  After 16 years as half of a duo, Williams needed to reestablish himself as a solo act. In May 1909 he returned to Hammerstein's Victoria Theater and the high-class vaudeville circuit. His new act consisted of several songs, comic monologues in dialect, and a concluding dance. He received top billing and a high salary, but "the White Rats," an organization of vaudevillians opposed to encroachments from blacks and women, intimidated the theater managers into reducing Williams' billing. The brash Walker would have resisted such an insult to his star status, but the more reserved Williams did not protest. Allies were few; big-time vaudeville managers were fearful of attracting a disproportionate number of black audience members and thus allowed only one black act per bill. Due to his skin, Williams typically travelled, ate and lodged separately from the rest of his fellow performers, increasing his sense of isolation following the loss of Walker.  Williams next starred as Mr. Lode of Koal, a farce about a kidnapped king that was well received by critics as a star vehicle though not a fully realized storyline. Camille Forbes' Introducing Bert Williams collects several reviews with competing race-based agendas. Many of the white reviewers praised Williams' "apparent spontaneous," "unpremeditated" humor, as if he were a guileless simpleton in no control of his own performance. A Chicago critic wrote, "They are racial, those hands and feet," while a Boston reviewer felt that the show's flimsiness and lack of structure were actually attributes because "when we succumb to the surreptitious desire for the broad tang of "nigger" humor, we want no disturbing atom of intelligence busy-bodying about." Meanwhile, many black reviewers ignored the show's faults, praising Williams' continued persistence and prominence as much if not more than his actual performance; an Indianapolis reviewer thought the play was evidence that "we are nearing the day of better things." Despite the good if loaded notices, Mr. Lode of Koal played a secondary string of theaters and was a box office flop.  Following the show's abbreviated run, Williams returned to the vaudeville circuit, and "the White Rats" renewed their opposition to his featured status. The Victoria Theater responded by cutting Williams to secondary billing, but putting his name on the marquee in lettering twice as large as that of the nominal headliner. Newspapers took note of the disingenuous manner in which the White Rats' demands had been met, as well as the way in which many of those performers who were impeding his career would rush to the front of the theater whenever his turn to perform came up.
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Did this make him depressed?

Answer:
Newspapers took note of the disingenuous manner in which the White Rats' demands had been met,


Question:
Francois-Marie Arouet (French: [fRa.swa ma.Ri aR.we]; 21 November 1694 - 30 May 1778), known by his nom de plume Voltaire (; French: [vol.te:R]), was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit, his attacks on the established Catholic Church and Christianity as a whole and his advocacy of freedom of religion, freedom of speech and separation of church and state.
Francois-Marie Arouet was born in Paris, the youngest of the five children of Francois Arouet (19 August 1649 - 1 January 1722), a lawyer who was a minor treasury official, and his wife, Marie Marguerite Daumard (c. 1660 - 13 July 1701), whose family was on the lowest rank of the French nobility. Some speculation surrounds Voltaire's date of birth, because he claimed he was born on 20 February 1694 as the illegitimate son of a nobleman, Guerin de Rochebrune or Roquebrune. Two of his older brothers--Armand-Francois and Robert--died in infancy, and his surviving brother Armand and sister Marguerite-Catherine were nine and seven years older, respectively. Nicknamed "Zozo" by his family, Voltaire was baptized on 22 November 1694, with Francois de Castagnere, abbe de Chateauneuf, and Marie Daumard, the wife of his mother's cousin, standing as godparents. He was educated by the Jesuits at the College Louis-le-Grand (1704-1711), where he was taught Latin, theology, and rhetoric; later in life he became fluent in Italian, Spanish, and English.  By the time he left school, Voltaire had decided he wanted to be a writer, against the wishes of his father, who wanted him to become a lawyer. Voltaire, pretending to work in Paris as an assistant to a notary, spent much of his time writing poetry. When his father found out, he sent Voltaire to study law, this time in Caen, Normandy. But the young man continued to write, producing essays and historical studies. Voltaire's wit made him popular among some of the aristocratic families with whom he mixed. In 1713, his father obtained a job for him as a secretary to the new French ambassador in the Netherlands, the marquis de Chateauneuf, the brother of Voltaire's godfather. At The Hague, Voltaire fell in love with a French Protestant refugee named Catherine Olympe Dunoyer (known as 'Pimpette'). Their affair, considered scandalous, was discovered by de Chateauneuf and Voltaire was forced to return to France by the end of the year.  Most of Voltaire's early life revolved around Paris. From early on, Voltaire had trouble with the authorities for critiques of the government. As a result, he was twice sentenced to prison and once to temporary exile to England. One satirical verse, in which Voltaire accused the Regent of incest with his daughter, resulted in an eleven-month imprisonment in the Bastille. The Comedie-Francaise had agreed in January 1717 to stage his debut play, OEdipe, and it opened in mid-November 1718, seven months after his release. Its immediate critical and financial success established his reputation. Both the Regent and King George I of Great Britain presented Voltaire with medals as a mark of their appreciation.  He mainly argued for religious tolerance and freedom of thought. He campaigned to eradicate priestly and aristo-monarchical authority, and supported a constitutional monarchy that protects people's rights.
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Who were his parents?

Answer:
Francois Arouet (19 August 1649 - 1 January 1722), a lawyer who was a minor treasury official, and his wife, Marie Marguerite Daumard