You're one of the first people who's never lived in a world without The Lord of the Rings.
In May 2015, Julie Beck wrote about how scientists have honored and analyzed J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy epic.
Around the time you were born, the submarine known as the USS Nautilus made its first nuclear-powered run.
In October 2014, Robinson Meyer published a first-person account of testing the nuclear reactor on the USS Nautilus.
You were born in January of 1955. This year, The Atlantic celebrates its 160th birthday, making it 2 times as old as you.
The year you were born, Joseph S. Clark, Jr. wrote about the scarcity of good men in politics.
Everett Collection
This is what Hollywood thought teenagers looked like the year you became one.
Wild in the Streets was released in 1968.
NASA
At 14 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.
Around your 18th birthday, the U.S. military officially withdrew from the conflict in Vietnam.
In March 2015, Alan Taylor published a photo essay on the Vietnam War.
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.
Jean-Paul Pelissier / Reuters
In 1988, Bruce Willis, who was born the same year as you, starred in the popular film Die Hard.
In October 2015, David Sims wrote about a planned Hollywood reboot of the Die Hard franchise.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute
When you turned 52, 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.
By the time you turn 70, the World Bank predicts that the U.S. dollar will lose its global dominance.
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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