You're one of the first people who's never lived in a world without G.I. Joe action figures.
In December 2015, Nolen Gertz wrote about adults' identities and the action figures they grew up with.
You were born in September of 1965. This year, The Atlantic celebrates its 160th birthday, making it 3 times as old as you.
The year you were born, Robert Manning wrote about his 1954 visit with the Nobel Prize–winning author Ernest Hemingway in Havana, Cuba.
Around the time you were born, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibiting racial discrimination in voting law.
In August 2015, David A. Graham wrote about the VRA 50 years in perspective.
Bettmann / Getty
This is what Hollywood thought teenagers looked like the year you became one.
Grease was released in 1978.
Around your 18th birthday, Thomas Sankara became president of Upper Volta, now Burkina Faso.
In October 2014, Alan Taylor published a photo essay on civil unrest and protest against the government in Burkina Faso.
Patrick Hertzog / AFP / Getty Images
At 24 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.
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.
Tyrone Siu / Reuters
In 1998, Michael Bay, who was born the same year as you, directed the movie Armageddon.
In July 2014, Katie Kilkenny wrote about Bay's willingness to create profit-driven movies.
Goran Tomasevic / Reuters
When you turned 45, 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 64, humanity's water requirements will exceed its supplies by 40 percent.
In May 2012, Stewart M. Patrick wrote about the Intelligence Community's report on global water scarcity, and the plan to combat it.
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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