Act I
The World Stage
World Population
How many people shared the planet
people on Earth when you were born
4.4 billion more people have arrived since
You arrived in a world with fewer than 4 billion. It has more than doubled since.
1 in 65 people alive today was born in 1972.
World Leaders
Who was in charge
United States President
Richard Nixon
President
UK Prime Minister
Edward Heath
Prime Minister
UN Secretary-General
Kurt Waldheim
United Nations
World Events
Defining moments of 1972
President Nixon visits China, meeting Mao Zedong and beginning normalization of US-China relations after 25 years
Nixon and Brezhnev sign SALT I arms limitation treaty in Moscow, the first major agreement limiting nuclear weapons
Five men arrested for breaking into Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington
Palestinian group Black September kills 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in a hostage siege
Apollo 17 returns from the Moon - the last humans to walk on the lunar surface, ending the Apollo program
Baby Names
Most popular names in 1972 (US)
Boys
Michael, Christopher, James
Girls
Jennifer, Lisa, Kimberly
Atmosphere
CO₂ in the air you first breathed
CO₂ concentration (Keeling Curve)
+95.0 ppm since your birth
CO₂ has climbed 29% since 1972. It's one of the few numbers that only goes up.
Act II
What Things Cost
Average Annual Salary
What workers took home
$9.7k US median household incomeAdjusted for inflation, that's worth about $73k in today's dollars.
Today: $80kPurchasing Power
Are we actually better off today?
What $10k in 1972 is worth right now
9% 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 1972
life expectancy at birth in 1972
A 34.4-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 2.8x the average annual salary
Median home now costs 5.3x the average annual salary
Housing has gotten 1.9x 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
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
Roberta Flack
Oscar Best Picture
The French Connection
Directed by William Friedkin
Grammy Album of the Year
Tapestry
Carole King
TV Premieres
Shows born the same year as you
Sports
Champions of the year
World Series
Oakland Athletics
Baseball
F1 Champion
Emerson Fittipaldi
Formula One
Super Bowl
Dallas Cowboys
24-3 vs Miami Dolphins
NBA Champion
Los Angeles Lakers
Basketball
Screen & Page
What everyone was watching and reading
Most-Watched Show
All in the Family
Television
Fiction Bestseller
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Richard Bach
Box Office #1
The Godfather
Film
Act IV
The State of Technology
Technology Milestone
Where technology stood
Pioneer 10 launched toward Jupiter; Landsat 1, the first Earth observation satellite, enters orbit
Notable Tech Releases
What launched that year
Pioneer 10 spacecraft launched on first mission to the outer solar system
Landsat 1, first Earth observation satellite, begins imaging the planet
Pong, first commercially successful video game, launched by Atari
HP-35 introduced by Hewlett-Packard as the world's first scientific pocket calculator
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
210M
people in United States
GDP per Capita
$6,094
per person per year
Your Birth Cohort
126M
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
Eminem·Gwyneth Paltrow·Cameron Diaz·Ben Affleck·Shaquille O'Neal
Life Expectancy
Have we made progress?
United States life expectancy at birth
United States life expectancy today
7 years of progress. Steady gains from better medicine, nutrition, and public health.
Computing Power
How much faster the machines have gotten
134.2 million times more powerfulComputing power has roughly doubled every two years since you were born. That adds up to 134.2 million×.
27 doublings since 1972Milestone Years
Your milestone birthdays
You turn 65 in 2037 · You turn 100 in 2072
Language
Words that didn't exist when you were born
Still Alive
Jonathan the tortoise was already 140 years old
a Seychelles giant tortoise living on Saint Helena island. He was already 140 years old the year you were born. He's still alive today at 194.
You arrived in a world of 3.8 billion people. Richard Nixon was in the White House. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face by Roberta Flack 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 1972, 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