Born in 1997

If you were born in 1997, you arrived in a prosperous, culturally busy year that felt like the high-water mark of Clinton-era optimism. The economy was genuinely roaring—five percent growth, unemployment falling toward historic lows, the budget nearly balanced for the first time in decades. Titanic hit theaters in December and became the highest-grossing film in history, women going back repeatedly to watch Leonardo DiCaprio sink into the North Atlantic.

"My Heart Will Go On" was inescapable from December through the following summer. The Notorious B.I.

G. was shot and killed in Los Angeles in March, six months after Tupac—the East Coast/West Coast rap war claiming its most devastating victims. Hanson's "MMMBop" was the summer's inescapable earworm.

The Spice Girls continued their world domination. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published in Britain, making its way to American shelves a year later and launching the most successful publishing phenomenon in history. The World Wide Web was four years old and already essential—email was changing offices, Amazon was selling books, and a company called Google was being conceived in a Stanford dorm.

Dolly the sheep was cloned and people argued about where science was taking us. Ellen DeGeneres came out on her sitcom and the country argued about that too. Beanie Babies were being traded at prices that seemed insane but weren't, yet.