You're one of the first people who's never lived in a world without hip-hop records.
In March 2015, Irvin Weathersby Jr. wrote about what hip-hop can teach Americans.
You were born in July of 1980. This year, The Atlantic celebrates its 160th birthday, making it 4 times as old as you.
The year you were born, Mary Jo Salter wrote about how the potential for women to be drafted into the military made society think more deeply about both war and feminism.
Around the time you were born, incumbent U.S. President Jimmy Carter defeated Senator Edward Kennedy in a bitterly contested presidential nomination battle.
In May 1979, James Fallows, who was a speech writer for Carter, wrote about why the latter's presidency had been so constrained.
Patrick Hertzog / AFP / Getty Images
At 9 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.
Everett Collection
This is what Hollywood thought teenagers looked like the year you became one.
Dazed and Confused was released in 1993.
Around your 18th birthday, J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was published.
In November 2014, Robinson Meyer collected the most highlighted passages in favorite books.
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.
Eric Thayer / Reuters
In 2007, Kim Kardashian, who was born the same year as you, began starring in the reality show Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
In March 2016, Ian Bogost wrote about Kardashian's career changes from socialite to head of a major business conglomerate.
Goran Tomasevic / Reuters
When you turned 30, 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.
By the time you turn 69, economist Jim O'Neill predicts that drug-resistant infections will kill one person every three seconds.
But it's possible to prevent that. In May 2016, Ed Yong wrote about the recommended steps to avert a post-antibiotic apocalypse.
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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