You're one of the first people who's never lived in a world without VCRs.
In July 2016, Ian Bogost wrote about the history and obsolescence of VCRs.
Around the time you were born, the last U.S. combat ground troops left South Vietnam.
In April 2000, John Lewis Gaddis looked at Vietnam from the Hawk perspective.
You were born in September of 1972. This year, The Atlantic celebrates its 160th birthday, making it 3 times as old as you.
The year you were born, Sanford J. Ungar wrote about the Pentagon Papers trial, calling it "a decisive test of the federal government's capacity to control the disclosure of information stamped 'secret'".
Everett Collection
This is what Hollywood thought teenagers looked like the year you became one.
The Breakfast Club was released in 1985.
Patrick Hertzog / AFP / Getty Images
At 17 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.
Around your 18th birthday, East Germany left the Warsaw Pact.
In November 1961, The Atlantic published the accounts of Germans who crossed from East to West before the Berlin Wall was erected.
Your life can be divided into two halves: before and after Amazon.
In March 2016, Ian Bogost wrote about the next stage in Amazon's commercial revolution.
Fred Prouser / Reuters
In 1999, Cameron Diaz, who was born the same year as you, was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her role in There's Something About Mary.
In April 2014, Esther Zuckerman wrote about Diaz's film roles.
Goran Tomasevic / Reuters
When you turned 38, 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 52, experts at the Pew Research Center warn that there will be no "surveillance-free spaces."
In December 2014, Adrienne LaFrance wrote about how the way we see privacy will change over the next decade.
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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