Algebraic tori - thirty years after

This is an expanded version of my talk given at the International Conference ``Algebra and Number Theory'' dedicated to the 80th anniversary of V. E. Voskresenskii, which was held at the Samara State University in May 2007. The goal is to give an overview of results of V. E. Voskresenskii on arithmetic and birational properties of algebraic tori which culminated in his monograph "Algebraic Tori" published in Russian 30 years ago. I shall try to put these results and ideas into somehow broader context and also to give a brief digest of the relevant activity related to the period after the English version of the monograph "Algebraic Groups and Their Birational Invariants" appeared.