You're one of the first people who's never lived in a world without Microsoft.
In February 2000, James Fallows wrote about the time he spent at the company the previous year, designing an updated release of Microsoft Word.
You were born in October of 1976. This year, The Atlantic celebrates its 160th birthday, making it 3 times as old as you.
The year you were born, David Halberstam wrote about how American centers of power had been affected by science, technology, and modern communications.
Around the time you were born, Mao Zedong's widow, Jian Qing, was arrested and charged with plotting a coup.
In December 1992, Orville Schell wrote about changing Chinese perceptions of Mao, from deification to obscurity and back again.
Danny Moloshok / Reuters
In 1987, Candace Cameron Bure, who was born the same year as you, began starring as D.J. Tanner in the show Full House.
In March 2014, Alexander Abad-Santos wrote about Candace Cameron's religious beliefs and Dancing with the Stars.
NBCU Photo Bank / Getty
This is what Hollywood thought teenagers looked like the year you became one.
Saved by the Bell premiered in 1989.
Patrick Hertzog / AFP / Getty Images
At 13 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, American forces occupied Haiti to support the return of democracy.
In June 2001, David Grann wrote about the fate of a paramilitary leader who terrorized Haitians—and maintained close ties with the U.S. intelligence community—in the years leading up to the occupation.
Your life can be divided into two halves: before and after Pokémon.
In July 2016, David Sims described the path from Pokémon Red and Blue to Pokémon Go.
Goran Tomasevic / Reuters
When you turned 34, 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 55, the collective GDP of the four leading developing countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) is likely to match that of today's leading Western nations.
In February 2012, Charles A. Kupchan wrote about the world's emerging economies, and how the world will look by 2050.
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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