How old am I if I was born in 1979?
If you were born in 1979 you are 46 or 47 years old, depending on whether your birthday has already come round this year. Pick your exact date below for your age to the second — and for everything else 1979 says about you.
Enter your date of birth
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Being born in 1979
Anyone born in 1979 turns 47 at some point during 2026. Until their birthday arrives they are still 46, which is why an age calculator that only knows the year can never give one answer. Enter the full date above and the number becomes exact, down to the second.
1979 makes you Gen X, and in the Chinese calendar it was the Year of the Goat.
What 1979 looked like
Kramer vs. Kramer won Best Picture and Superman was the biggest film at the box office. In the news, 1979 was the year of the Iran hostage crisis begins.
The world in 1979
There were about 4.38 billion people alive, against roughly 8.25 billion today. Atmospheric CO₂ stood near 338 ppm, compared with about 427 ppm now. And money went further: $100 in 1979 bought roughly what $427 buys today.
Sport around 1979
The nearest Summer Olympics were held in Moscow in 1980. The closest World Cup was won by Argentina in 1978. Around then, the moment people still talk about was the Miracle on Ice at Lake Placid.
What else you can work out from a 1979 birthday
Once you enter the exact day, the cards above fill in: the phase of the moon on the night you were born, your star sign and birthstone, how many people share your birthday, which famous people were born on it, your age in dog years using the real 2019 formula rather than the old “multiply by seven” myth, how far you have travelled around the sun, and which historical event your birth date sits closer to than it does to today.