Life Timeline

For those born December 16, 1966.

Not your birthday? Find your timeline here.

1965
Before you were born

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

In November 2010, Cailey Hall wrote about the magic that makes the movie resonate decades after its release.

1966
Year 56

You were born in December of 1966. This year, The Atlantic celebrates its 160th birthday, making it 3 times as old as you.

The year you were born, Mervyn Cadwallader wrote about the mores and mishaps that increasingly afflicted love and marriage among young Americans.

1966
Beginnings

Around the time you were born, the United States began bombing Hanoi, Vietnam.

In April 2015, Elisabeth Rosen wrote about how the North Vietnamese perceive the Vietnam War 40 years later.

1979

Everett Collection

The teenage years

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

Rock 'n' Roll High School was released in 1979.

1984
Coming of age

Around your 18th birthday, Ronald Reagan was reelected president of the United States.

In January 1987, William Schneider wrote about how the transformation of American politics in the 1960s and '70s brought Reagan to power, and how they would shape the approaching race to replace him.

1989

Patrick Hertzog / AFP / Getty Images

After the Fall

At 22 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.

1991
Half a life ago

Your life can be divided into two halves: before and after websites.

In February 2015, Julie Beck wrote about what is lost when websites change or disappear.

2004

Mario Anzuoni / Reuters

Contemporaries

In 2004, J.J. Abrams, who was born the same year as you, began directing the TV series Lost, which won him two Emmy Awards over its six-year run.

In April 2015, David Sims wrote about the use of nostalgia in Abrams's films.

2010

Goran Tomasevic / Reuters

After the Spring

When you turned 44, 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.

2025
Forecasts

By the time you turn 58, 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.

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: