You're one of the first people who's never lived in a world without universal credit cards.
In April 2015, Joe Pinsker wrote about how people misuse credit cards without giving much thought to the consequences.
You were born in August of 1951. This year, The Atlantic celebrates its 160th birthday, making it 2 times as old as you.
The year you were born, Bertrand Russell considered three possible futures for the human race, as the Cold War set in.
Around the time you were born, the first transcontinental TV broadcast aired, featuring U.S. President Harry Truman.
In January 2011, George E. Condon Jr., in his analysis of how the State of the Union address has evolved over the years, discussed how Harry Truman was the first president to make use of television broadcasts.
AP
This is what Hollywood thought teenagers looked like the year you became one.
A Hard Day's Night was released in 1964.
NASA
At 17 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.
Around your 18th birthday, the Woodstock Music Festival was held in upstate New York.
In September 2009, James Parker reflected on the famous festival and the documentary that brought it to the screen.
Your life can be divided into two halves: before and after the Disney Channel.
In July 2015, James Parker wrote about the insidious messages tweens pick up from the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.
Craig Fujii / AP
In 1991, Luther Vandross, who was born the same year as you, started his "Power of Love" tour, which included four back-to-back sold-out concerts at Madison Square Garden.
In April 2012, Michael Arcenaux wrote about how R&B had changed since that legendary tour.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute
When you turned 55, 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.
By the time you turn 69, scientists estimate it will no longer be possible to keep global temperatures from rising at least 1.5 degrees Celsius.
In December 2015, Robinson Meyer wrote about why scientists had accepted this fact.
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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