May 14, 2019

Gas cost $2.60 a gallon in the spring of 2019, and the Dow Jones stood at 28,538 — with the U.S. and China closing in on a trade deal that would roll back billions of dollars in tariffs, signaling a potential end to a trade war that had rattled markets for over a year. On television, "Succession" was drawing critical acclaim as one of the sharpest dramas on air, while Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus had locked "Old Town Road" into the number one spot on the Billboard Hot Time chart for weeks running, making it a fixture of the American summer soundtrack. The Toronto Raptors made history by becoming the first Canadian team to win the NBA championship, defeating the Golden State Warriors, while across the Atlantic, a 17-year-old British patient named Isabelle Holdaway became the first person in the world to be successfully treated with genetically modified phage therapy, a landmark moment in the fight against drug-resistant infections.