Life Timeline

For those born May 20, 1947.

Not your birthday? Find your timeline here.

1946
Before you were born

You're one of the first people who's never lived in a world without It's A Wonderful Life.

In December 2016, Bourree Lam and Gillian B. White discussed the film's still-relevant financial themes, seventy years after it was first released.

1947
Beginnings

Around the time you were born, the Constitution of Japan was enacted following Japan's surrender in World War II.

In January 2013, Christine Russell wrote about Beate Sirota and equal rights in the Japanese Constitution.

1947
Year 76

You were born in May of 1947. This year, The Atlantic celebrates its 160th birthday, making it 2 times as old as you.

The year you were born, David L. Cohn wrote about changing American attitudes toward marriage and monogamy, as the national divorce rate climbed.

1965
Coming of age

Around your 18th birthday, 40 students burned their draft cards, starting a new form of protest.

In April 1968, James C. Thomson wrote an autopsy of how the Vietnam War became such a calamity.

1969

NASA

Man on the Moon

At 22 years old, you were alive to behold people walking on the moon.

Over the years, the moon landing has come to be lauded as the pinnacle of human achievement, although it was often derided at the time. In 1963, NASA astronauts took to The Atlantic to plead the case for landing on the moon.

1981
Half a life ago

Your life can be divided into two halves: before and after MTV.

In August 2011, Leah Carroll talked with MTV News anchor Kurt Loder on the network's 30th birthday.

1982

AP

Contemporaries

In 1982, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was born the same year as you, starred in the film Conan the Barbarian, which became a box-office hit and introduced him to an American audience.

In November 2007, Schwarzenegger wrote about the need for unity in American politics.

2007

NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute

Across the Universe

When you turned 60, you watched humankind reach the outer solar system.

With NASA's Cassini-Huygens mission in 2005, humans landed a probe in the outer reaches of the solar system for the first time, a moment Ross Andersen called the most glorious mission in the history of planetary science.

Today
History in the making

History is happening all around you, every day.

The Atlantic is here to help you process it, in stories like these: