When Beloit College started its Mindset List in 1998, its creators could not have imagined how it would catch on.
It all started as a "witty way of saying to faculty colleagues 'watch your references,' " as the Mindset website notes. Yes, the list has its own site and the lofty, trademarked title: "The official home of the Mindset Lists of American History."
The site boasts more than a million hits a year, myriad requests and reprints in print and digital publications. There's even a book, by Mindset's Ron Nief and Tom McBride, that rounds up the wisdom of the last decade-plus in Mindset Lists.
Here are some highlights from that first list published in 1998 that caught the public's imagination, addressing children born in 1980. They graduated from college in 2002:
-- They have no meaningful recollection of the Reagan era, and did not know he had ever been shot.
-- Black Monday 1987 is as significant to them as the Great Depression.
--They never had a polio shot, and likely, do not know what it is.
Now, take a look at a gallery from the list published today, highlighting the top 10 from Mindset List 2016. And, below, here are a few more from the 2016 roundup to make you think:
-- Exposed bra straps have always been a fashion statement, not a wardrobe malfunction to be corrected quietly by well-meaning friends.
-- Women have always piloted war planes and space shuttles.
-- There have always been blue M&Ms, but no tan ones.
--They were too young to enjoy the 1994 World Series, but then no one else got to enjoy it either.
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