Born in 1968

If you were born in 1968, you were born into the year that broke open. It is difficult to exaggerate how much happened: the Tet Offensive in January shattered the official optimism about Vietnam; LBJ announced he wouldn't run for re-election; Martin Luther King Jr. was shot on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in April and cities burned across the country; Robert Kennedy was shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in June, hours after winning the California primary; the Democratic Convention in Chicago descended into violence outside and chaos inside; and in November, Richard Nixon was elected president.

The country was concussed, grieving, furious. And yet: 2001: A Space Odyssey was in theaters and Stanley Kubrick was remaking what film could do. "Hey Jude" was eight minutes of the Beatles building to something enormous.

The Big Mac was introduced at McDonald's. The first Boeing 747 rolled out of the factory. The first Earth Day concept was taking shape.

Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists on the medal stand in Mexico City and froze history in a photograph. Through all the noise and grief and anger, the ordinary machinery of American life kept turning: Little League games, church suppers, Sears catalogs, the ice cream truck's bell on a summer evening. The country was stronger than its worst year.

Barely, but it was.