Born in 2015

If you were born in 2015, you came into a year of both progress and pain. The Supreme Court ruled in *Obergefell v. Hodges* in June that same-sex couples had a constitutional right to marry, and the White House was lit in rainbow colors that night—a civil rights milestone that had seemed impossible a decade before.

Nine Black churchgoers were killed at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina in June by a white supremacist who had sat with them during Bible study for an hour before opening fire. The subsequent removal of Confederate flags from state capitols across the South was swift, a symbol finally meeting its reckoning. ISIS attacks in Paris in November sent a shiver through Western capitals.

The refugee crisis in Europe was enormous and the argument about America's response was fierce. Donald Trump announced his presidential candidacy in June with a speech about Mexican immigrants that the political establishment regarded as disqualifying and his eventual base regarded as honest. *Mad Max: Fury Road* was the film everyone loved on sight.

*The Martian* and *Spotlight* were the others. Drake and Kendrick Lamar and The Weeknd were the sounds of the year. The Apple Watch arrived.

Streaming was now unambiguously how Americans consumed music and television. Hamilton opened off-Broadway and moved to Broadway and became the thing you had to see.