You're one of the first people who's never lived in a world without Microsoft.
In February 2000, James Fallows wrote about the time he spent at the company the previous year, designing an updated release of Microsoft Word.
You were born in April of 1976. This year, The Atlantic celebrates its 160th birthday, making it 4 times as old as you.
The year you were born, David Halberstam wrote about how American centers of power had been affected by science, technology, and modern communications.
Around the time you were born, Apple Computer was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne.
In April 2011, Nicholas Jackson provided an infographic of Apple's tumultuous rise to becoming the most valuable company in the world.
NBCU Photo Bank / Getty
This is what Hollywood thought teenagers looked like the year you became one.
Saved by the Bell premiered in 1989.
Patrick Hertzog / AFP / Getty Images
At 13 years old, you saw the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
“It was thought that all borders between men had similarly disintegrated, and we were all destined to be free and empowered individuals in a global meeting place,” wrote Robert Kaplan 20 years later.
Around your 18th birthday, CIA double agent Aldrich Ames was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
In February 1998, Edward G. Shirley wrote about the broken culture of the CIA, first revealed to the world with the discovery of KGB mole Ames.
Your life can be divided into two halves: before and after Pokémon.
In July 2016, David Sims described the path from Pokémon Red and Blue to Pokémon Go.
Goran Tomasevic / Reuters
When you turned 34, you saw the rise of the Arab Spring.
People across the world rediscovered the power and peril of revolutions, as Laura Kasinof found in Yemen.
Mark J. Rebilas / USA TODAY Sports / Reuters
In 2016, Peyton Manning, who was born the same year as you, led the Denver Broncos to a victory over the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50 shortly before announcing his retirement.
In October 2015, Robert O'Connell wrote about the decline in Manning's performance.
By the time you turn 58, NASA says it will send humans to explore Mars.
In August 2015, Alakananda Mookerjee wrote about what new Mars colonists would be able to eat—and how they'd grow it.
History is happening all around you, every day.
The Atlantic is here to help you process it, in stories like these:
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