Born in 2001

If you were born in 2001, the year of your birth is marked by a date everyone knows: September 11th. The four hijacked planes, the towers falling, the Pentagon burning, the crash in the Pennsylvania field—footage that played on an endless loop for days while the country sat in a particular stunned silence it had never quite felt before. Three thousand people were dead.

Within weeks, America was at war in Afghanistan. The anthrax letters were being mailed to senators and news anchors. Duct tape and plastic sheeting were being stockpiled.

The country's sense of its own invulnerability was gone, permanently. Bush's approval rating hit ninety percent. And yet the ordinary machinery of American life ran alongside the grief: *Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone* opened in November and eight-year-olds in wizard hats queued around the block.

*Shrek* and *Moulin Rouge* were at the multiplex. iPod launched in October for $399 and you could fit a thousand songs in your pocket. Wikipedia launched in January.

*Monsters, Inc.* made children happy. The economy was in recession.

The Office had just opened in England and was about to cross the Atlantic. The America born into on September 10th and the America of September 12th were different countries sharing the same zip codes.