Born in 2013

If you were born in 2013, you arrived in a year when the country was both moving forward and sitting in uncomfortable truths. The Boston Marathon bombing in April—two brothers, a pressure cooker, Patriots' Day—killed three people and injured hundreds and put the city into an unprecedented urban lockdown, the first time an American city had been essentially shut down and searched house by house. Edward Snowden's leaks in June revealed the scope of NSA surveillance of American citizens and the world's leaders, and the debate about security versus privacy became suddenly, unavoidably urgent.

Obama's second term was contending with the first government shutdown in seventeen years as the Tea Party wing pushed for defunding the Affordable Care Act. *Gravity* and *Her* and *12 Years a Slave* were the year's films—the last a confrontation with American history that the Academy could not ignore. Beyoncé's surprise self-titled visual album in December was a cultural event unlike any previous music release—no promotion, no warning, just the album appearing on iTunes at midnight.

Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" was the summer's song. The iPhone 5s introduced fingerprint identification. Netflix released the first season of *House of Cards* all at once and binge-watching had its name.

The country was polarized but not yet at its worst, still arguing within recognizable rules.