important events in the '60s and '70s

Made up of those born between 1946 and 1964, this generation was named after the “boom” in birth rates after World War II, when soldiers coming home from the war settled down and raised families. For a long time, the baby boomers also held the title of America’s largest generation, with a peak of nearly 79 million boomers in the U.S. in 1999 — that is, until their own children (a.k.a the millennial generation!) surpassed them in numbers in the summer of 2019.