Recalling your history

If you like studying the past, you may enjoy a fun new online feature at The Atlantic magazine (theatlantic.com), which answers the question, How will history remember your lifetime?

The “Explore your life in history” page asks for your birthday and then presents a rundown of key cultural, social and political events and milestones that have happened while you’ve been alive. Say you were born in (ahem!) 1960 — you’ll find, or be reminded, that “At 9 years old, you were alive to behold people walking on the moon.” It shows you how Hollywood presented teenagers in the year when you became one (in this case, up pops a reminder that “American Graffiti” came out in 1973.)

You meet celebrity contempories (I did not know Jennifer Gray from “Dirty Dancing” was also born in 1960), and get some science — namely, that in my 40s, NASA reached the edge of the solar system with the Cassini-Huygens probe. Fair warning, too: “By the time you turn 70, humanity’s water requirements will exceed its supplies by 40 percent.”

What will you find? Drop me a line at rrollins@coxohio.com.

About the Author