You're one of the first people who's never lived in a world without Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.
In January 2016, Melinda D. Anderson explored the ways students learn about Martin Luther King Jr. and social justice.
Around the time you were born, the U.S. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing President Lyndon Johnson to send armed forces into Vietnam.
In April 1968, James C. Thompson, who served in the U.S. Department of State under Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, examined and condemned the policy decisions behind American involvement in Vietnam.
You were born in September of 1964. This year, The Atlantic celebrates its 160th birthday, making it 3 times as old as you.
The year you were born, Edward Weeks, then editor of The Atlantic, endorsed a candidate for the United States presidency for only the second time in the magazine's long history, supporting then-incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson over Senator Barry Goldwater.
NASA
At 4 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.
Bettmann / Getty
This is what Hollywood thought teenagers looked like the year you became one.
Saturday Night Fever was released in 1977.
Around your 18th birthday, the first compact discs were manufactured in Germany.
In October 2012, Megan Garber celebrated the 30th birthday of the CD player and the compact disc.
Your life can be divided into two halves: before and after the World Wide Web.
In October 2015, Adrienne LaFrance wrote about the disappearance of published content—including a Pulitzer finalist's 34-part investigative series—from the internet.
STR New / Reuters
In 1996, Nicolas Cage, who was born the same year as you, won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in the film Leaving Las Vegas.
In February 2012, Daniel Snyder wrote a defense of Nicolas Cage, a "whipping boy of critics and internet pranksters alike."
NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute
When you turned 42, 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 56, 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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