Ayn Rand was born Alisa Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg, Russia, on February 2, 1905 to Fronz (a chemist) and Anna. Alisa taught herself to read at age six and by age nine, she determined that she would become a writer of idealist heroes like those created by Sir Walter Scott and Victor Hugo. The family fled the Bolshevik Revolution soon after it began in 1917 and relocated to the Crimea. The Communists confiscated her father's business and, as a result, the family was thrown into poverty. During this period she studied American history and became enthralled with the democratic system, which would have a profound effect on her fiction. When she and her family returned to Russia, she began studies in philosophy and history at the University of Petrograd where she graduated in 1924. That same.....
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