You're one of the first people who's never lived in a world without NASA.
In March 2015, Cari Romm wrote about the technological impact of NASA on everyday life.
Around the time you were born, two monkeys named Able and Baker became the first animals retrieved from a space mission.
In March 2013, Megan Garber explained how the Soviet Union used a crash-test dummy to ensure safe human space travel.
You were born in May of 1959. This year, The Atlantic celebrates its 160th birthday, making it 3 times as old as you.
The year you were born, Grover Loening wrote about the history of the development of American planes, and what can be learned from the missed opportunties of the past.
NASA
At 10 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.
Bettmann / Getty
This is what Hollywood thought teenagers looked like the year you became one.
The Brady Bunch premiered in 1972.
Around your 18th birthday, the first installment of the Star Wars movies opened in theaters.
In March 1979, an article discussed the toy and other markets that were emerging as part of Lucas' other "empire."
Your life can be divided into two halves: before and after The Simpsons.
In February 2012, Hampton Stevens wrote about what The Simpsons had left to say after airing its 500th episode.
Blake Sell / Reuters
In 1993, Emma Thompson, who was born the same year as you, earned her Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the film Howards End.
In December 2013, Esther Zuckerman wrote about Thompson's publicity push for the 2014 Oscars.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute
When you turned 48, 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 61, scientists estimate it will no longer be possible to keep global temperatures from rising at least 1.5 degrees Celsius.
In December 2015, Robinson Meyer wrote about why scientists had accepted this fact.
History is happening all around you, every day.
The Atlantic is here to help you process it, in stories like these:
Tell your story.
