You're one of the first people who's never lived in a world without the 24-hour news cycle.
In October 2009, Mark Bowden wrote about the toll of constant coverage.
Around the time you were born, President Ronald Reagan nominated Sandra Day O'Connor to be the first female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
In March 1988, Gene Sperling wrote about O'Connor's potential role as a swing vote on the changing Court.
You were born in June of 1981. This year, The Atlantic celebrates its 160th birthday, making it 4 times as old as you.
The year you were born, William Greider wrote about the incoming budget director's experiences working in the Congressional Budget Office, in a revealing article which set off a firestorm of controversy in and around the Reagan administration.
Mark Seliger / ABC via Getty
This is what Hollywood thought teenagers looked like the year you became one.
My So-Called Life premiered in 1994.
Your life can be divided into two halves: before and after Google.
In the July/August 2008 issue, Nicholas Carr wondered whether Google was making people stupid.
Around your 18th birthday, a shooting spree at Columbine High School left 13 dead.
In October 2000, Timothy Harper wrote about how police forces changed after Columbine.
Jason Redmond / AP
At 20 years old, you were part of the generation most shaped by 9/11.
The conflicts and displacements touched off around the world by the attacks have been reverberating for the majority of your life. “This ‘war’ [on terrorism] will never be over,” wrote James Fallows, a few years after the towers fell.
Jim Ruymen / Reuters
In 2004, Justin Timberlake, who was born the same year as you, won a Grammy Award for his album Justified.
In March 2013, Hampton Stevens wrote about how Timberlake embodies the showbiz archetype of the song-and-dance man.
Goran Tomasevic / Reuters
When you turned 29, you witnessed the revolutionary fervor that transformed the Arab world in 2010, a movement led by your generation.
When 26-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire, he ignited a tinderbox of protests that continue to roil the Middle East, and kindled the beginnings of democracy in Tunisia.
By the time you turn 68, China is predicted to be the world's largest economy.
In February 2012, Charles A. Kupchan wrote about the world's emerging economies, and how the world will look by 2050.
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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