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We'd always understood that the "baby boom" was the result of soldiers returning from World War II. Grateful that they were no longer being shot at on a regular basis, the GIs gladly embraced their wives and girlfriends with a vigor not seen before or since. The babies were sort of a side effect. If you figure that WWII ended around 1945, you could say that the baby boom started in 1946 (nine months later). That would make the oldest boomers 53 years old. As for the other end of the equation -- when did the boom end? -- we checked the Web for the answer. In Yahoo!'s Baby Boomers category (under Society and Culture > Cultures and Groups), we found Baby
Boom: A History, which confirmed our knowledge about the beginning of the period (VE Day was May 1945) and gave us some other insights. It turns out that the boom lasted for 19 years, marked by 76 million total births. There were over three million new babies in the first year, and the annual rate quickly climbed to over four million per year. In 1964, the rate fell below that number and thus the boom was over. So the youngest boomers currently would be 34 years old. For more, check out the American Association of Baby Boomers. There you'll find boomer news as well as historical trivia about each of the years in the period.
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