Act I
The World Stage
World Population
How many people shared the planet
people on Earth when you were born
4.5 billion more people have arrived since
You arrived in a world with fewer than 4 billion. It has more than doubled since.
1 in 67 people alive today was born in 1970.
World Leaders
Who was in charge
United States President
Richard Nixon
President
UK Prime Minister
Edward Heath
Prime Minister
UN Secretary-General
U Thant
United Nations
World Events
Defining moments of 1970
Apollo 13 oxygen tank explodes en route to the Moon; crew safely returns to Earth
First Earth Day celebrated on April 22, marking birth of the modern environmental movement
National Guard kills four student protesters at Kent State University during Vietnam War protest
Jimi Hendrix dies at age 27 in London; Janis Joplin dies the same month
Salvador Allende inaugurated as the world's first democratically elected Marxist president in Chile
Baby Names
Most popular names in 1970 (US)
Boys
Michael, James, David
Girls
Jennifer, Lisa, Kimberly
Atmosphere
CO₂ in the air you first breathed
CO₂ concentration (Keeling Curve)
+96.8 ppm since your birth
CO₂ has climbed 30% since 1970. It's one of the few numbers that only goes up.
Act II
What Things Cost
Average Annual Salary
What workers took home
$8.7k US median household incomeAdjusted for inflation, that's worth about $71k in today's dollars.
Today: $80kPurchasing Power
Are we actually better off today?
What $9k in 1970 is worth right now
12% less purchasing power than today's median
Wages have grown, but housing, healthcare, and education have grown faster. The math isn't in your favor.
The Birth Lottery
Same year. Different world.
life expectancy at birth in 1970
life expectancy at birth in 1970
A 35.4-year gap, decided entirely by where you happened to be born. Same year, different world.
Everyday Prices
What things cost
Housing
Homes vs. salaries - then and now
Median home cost 2.7x the average annual salary
Median home now costs 5.3x the average annual salary
Housing has gotten 2.0x harder to afford relative to income. Your parents weren't exaggerating about how cheap houses were.
Act III
What Was Playing
Billboard Year-End #1
Bridge Over Troubled Water
Simon & Garfunkel
Oscar Best Picture
Midnight Cowboy
Directed by John Schlesinger
Grammy Album of the Year
Blood, Sweat & Tears
Blood, Sweat & Tears
TV Premieres
Shows born the same year as you
Sports
Champions of the year
World Series
Baltimore Orioles
Baseball
FIFA World Cup
Brazil
Football
F1 Champion
Jochen Rindt
Formula One
Super Bowl
Kansas City Chiefs
23-7 vs Minnesota Vikings
Screen & Page
What everyone was watching and reading
Most-Watched Show
Marcus Welby, M.D.
Television
Fiction Bestseller
Love Story
Erich Segal
Box Office #1
Airport
Film
Act IV
The State of Technology
Technology Milestone
Where technology stood
Floppy disk invented at IBM; UNIX operating system developed at Bell Labs
Notable Tech Releases
What launched that year
UNIX operating system developed at Bell Labs by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie
Floppy disk invented by IBM engineer Alan Shugart
First ARPANET message sent between UCLA and Stanford (1969, operational in 1970)
Intel 1103 - world's first commercially available DRAM chip released
Social Media Timeline
How old were you when these launched?
The Universe
Worlds discovered beyond our solar system
No exoplanets confirmed yet
confirmed and counting
When you were born, humanity had no proof that planets existed outside our solar system. Now we know they're everywhere.
Act V
Your Place in Time
🇺🇸 United States
Your country the year you arrived
Population
205M
people in United States
GDP per Capita
$5,234
per person per year
Your Birth Cohort
122M
babies born worldwide that year
Your birth year is closer to the moon landing than to today.
Notable Births
Born the same year as you
Matt Damon·Mariah Carey·Queen Latifah·Andre Agassi·Christopher Nolan
Life Expectancy
Have we made progress?
United States life expectancy at birth
United States life expectancy today
8 years of progress. Steady gains from better medicine, nutrition, and public health.
Computing Power
How much faster the machines have gotten
268.4 million times more powerfulComputing power has roughly doubled every two years since you were born. That adds up to 268.4 million×.
28 doublings since 1970Milestone Years
Your milestone birthdays
You turn 65 in 2035 · You turn 100 in 2070
Language
Words that didn't exist when you were born
Still Alive
Jonathan the tortoise was already 138 years old
a Seychelles giant tortoise living on Saint Helena island. He was already 138 years old the year you were born. He's still alive today at 194.
You arrived in a world of 3.7 billion people. Richard Nixon was in the White House. Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon & Garfunkel was on the radio. You grew up in the last decade where being unreachable was normal. No pagers, no cell phones, just the world right in front of you.
In 1970, recording your voice meant pressing play+record on a cassette.
Today, you can clone your own voice with a few minutes of audio.
Hear what that sounds like →keep exploring