Life Timeline

For those born September 9, 1956.

Not your birthday? Find your timeline here.

1955
Before you were born

You're one of the first people who's never lived in a world without Disneyland.

In December 2008, P.J. O'Rourke wrote about Disneyland's vision of domesticity in the park's renewed House of the Future.

1956
Beginnings

Around the time you were born, the hard-disk drive was invented by an IBM team.

In June 2011, Alexis C. Madrigal published an illustrated timeline of IBM's greatest achievements.

1956
Year 66

You were born in September of 1956. This year, The Atlantic celebrates its 160th birthday, making it 2 times as old as you.

The year you were born, Ishaq Husseini wrote about the effort to reconcile the traditional religion of Islam with the realities of modern life.

1969

Bettmann / Getty

The teenage years

This is what Hollywood thought teenagers looked like the year you became one.

Easy Rider was released in 1969.

1969

NASA

Man on the Moon

At 12 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.

1974
Coming of age

Around your 18th birthday, President Richard Nixon resigned from his position following the Watergate scandal.

In August 2014, David Graham wrote a retrospective on Nixon's resignation 40 years later.

1986
Half a life ago

Your life can be divided into two halves: before and after The Oprah Winfrey Show.

In January 2011, Sharmin T.M. Kent wrote about Oprah launching her own television network, Oxygen.

2007

NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute

Across the Universe

When you turned 50, 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.

2016

Juan Medina / Reuters

Contemporaries

In 2016, Theresa May, who was born the same year as you, became Britain's first female prime minister since Margaret Thatcher, and the first to lead the country out of the European Union since the Brexit referendum.

In July 2016, Krishnadev Calamur wrote about May's political career as she assumed the prime minister position.

2021
Forecasts

By the time you turn 64, 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.

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: