1/ At the end of The Atlantic’s 162nd year, a look back at some of The Atlantic’s most-read and standout stories from 2019:
2/ Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished into the Indian Ocean five years ago, and we still don’t know why. The explanation lies not in the sea but on land—in Malaysia, where officials know more than they dare to say. bit.ly/2x8m5U9
3/ Like eating Tide pods and snorting condoms, the Momo challenge was a viral hoax. Spreading these stories distracts from the internet's real harms, @taylorlorenz wrote: bit.ly/2Xxp3NI
4/ Decline is inevitable, and though it occurs earlier than almost any of us wants to believe, misery doesn’t necessarily have to follow. @arthurbrooks reported on how to accept that our professional peak won’t last forever: bit.ly/2QCoCiC
5/ You likely don’t need to go to the dentist every six months. And you might want a second opinion before getting that root canal. @ferrisjabr on the trouble with modern dentistry: bit.ly/2VRsa1P
6/ Did “Jeopardy” lose money on James Holzhauer, the contestant who set five single-day-winnings records? @jpinsk explained how game-show prize budgets work: bit.ly/35dsU5o
7/ "If the Covington Catholic incident was a test, it’s one I failed—along with most others," @JayZeeCincy wrote at the beginning of 2019: bit.ly/2SFC7AQ
8/ “Donald Trump’s narcissism makes it impossible for him to carry out the duties of the presidency in the way the Constitution requires,” argued @gtconway3d in October: bit.ly/2oHzamK
9/ "Starting the [impeachment] process will rein in a president who is undermining American ideals—and bring the debate about his fitness for office into Congress, where it belongs." Read @YAppelbaum, who made the case for impeachment in January 2019: bit.ly/2srsWcH
10/ When news of the college-admissions scandal (“Operation Varsity Blues”) broke in the spring, @CaitlinPacific was reminded of her time as a college counselor and what she had seen from some of the parents: bit.ly/2TZ0tCv
11/ The “Bohemian Rhapsody” director Bryan Singer has been trailed by accusations of sexual misconduct for 20 years. Here, his alleged victims tell their stories. @MisterAlexFren1 and @maxapotter report: bit.ly/2tBYdXe
12/ “A culture that funnels its dreams of self-actualization into salaried jobs is setting itself up for collective anxiety, mass disappointment, and inevitable burnout,” argued @DKThomp: bit.ly/2XqFFac
13/ “There’s a very high cost to our politics for celebrating the Trump style, but what is most personally painful to me as a person of the Christian faith is the cost to the Christian witness,” argued @Peter_Wehner: bit.ly/2NBiyZE
14/ When Jay-Z and the NFL announced their partnership, @JemeleHill wrote, “Jay-Z has given the NFL exactly what it wanted: guilt-free access to black audiences, culture, entertainers, and influencers.” bit.ly/2TBvCgN
15/ Hagfish slime is one of nature’s more wondrous substances, unlike anything else that’s been concocted by either evolution or engineers, @edyong209 reported: bit.ly/2Sal5Lv
16/ If you feel like the year flew by and you only saw your friends a few times, read @judithshulevitz on why the hours in which we work, rest, and socialize are becoming ever more desynchronized. bit.ly/2OLkBZY
17/ A warning from a reformed white nationalist: “The [white-supremacist] ideology is spreading more into the mainstream than it ever has before … Some of the rhetoric coming from the very top is emboldening extremists.“ bit.ly/2QzVQPH
18/ The Instagram aesthetic has fallen out of favor as quickly as it rose through the ranks, and “teens are going out of their way to make their photos look worse,” wrote @TaylorLorenz: bit.ly/2GDYGzu
19/ Meanwhile the Millennial generation is, in short, “screwed,” according to @AnnieLowrey: bit.ly/2rOe4Vq
20/ @JohnGHendy looked at former Vice President Joe Biden’s stutter through the lens of his own: bit.ly/2Di5Yq5
21/ Newly unearthed audio revealed Ronald Regan’s long-hidden racist conversation with Richard Nixon disparaging African delegates to the UN: bit.ly/39vgvgA
22/ @LenMandy made the case against marriage, asking the question, “What if marriage is not the social good that so many believe and want it to be?” bit.ly/2FTSFhp
23/ As part of The Atlantic’s ongoing coverage of how generations affect one another, @lymanstoneky argued that “the Baby Boom generation created, advanced, or preserved policies that made American institutions less dynamic.” bit.ly/2SHxVjT
24/ @JWVerret was a Trump transition staffer. After reading the Mueller report twice, he “realized that enough was enough” and that he had reached his tipping point: bit.ly/36hyaWQ
25/ In an age of optimization and workism, @DSMarkovits wrote on how “meritocracy now excludes everyone outside of a narrow elite.” bit.ly/2KNOd5a
26/ Following his departure from the Trump administration, former Defense Secretary James Mattis sat down with @JeffreyGoldberg and told him: “I had no choice but to leave.” bit.ly/2Zwyotf
27/ Scientists were “not expecting” to find blood flow stalling in five of 11 astronauts studied. In two astronauts, blood in the vessel actually started moving in the opposite direction. bit.ly/2ZDgNxc
28/ “End-of-life communication will only become more relevant as life lengthens and deaths happen more frequently in institutions,” wrote @michaelerard. But studying it is so, so difficult. bit.ly/2RR49tb
29/ The wildly popular podcaster and comedian Joe Rogan has figured out something elemental about American masculinity, according to @DevinGordonX’s six-week experiment. It's time for the rest of the country to pay attention. bit.ly/2Qe1p7s
30/ “Infectious diseases—some that ravaged populations in the Middle Ages—are resurging in California and around the country, and are hitting homeless populations especially hard,” warned @AnnaGorman and @KHNews. bit.ly/2Qf91GR
31/ Four guests who found cameras in their Airbnb rentals told @sidneyfussell the company has inconsistently applied its own rules when investigating claims of being filmed without consent: bit.ly/2TCCWXR
32/ In a study published in February, scientists revealed that in the Mariana Trench, the lowest point in any ocean, every tiny animal tested had plastic pollution hiding in its gut. bit.ly/35amOmo
33/ @ElainaPlott conducted interviews with President Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, Ivana Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Nikki Haley, along with about 50 other sources who are close to or who know Ivanka Trump. Here’s what they said about the first daughter: bit.ly/2IBB6om
34/ “An analysis of dental plaque illuminates the forgotten history of female scribes,” @sarahzhang reported in January. bit.ly/2QyOzQe
35/ Eliud Kipchoge ran the distance of a marathon in less than two hours. His time, 1:59:40, is the fastest any runner has ever covered 26.2 miles. But his run was so heavily engineered that it does not count as a world record: bit.ly/2Qyyj1D
36/ Almost three years into the Trump administration, “I have never heard officers in high positions express such alarm about a president,” wrote Mark Bowden: bit.ly/2QDTPSN
37/ “I don’t look at myself as being a historical figure,” Mitt Romney told @mckaycoppins, “but I do think these are critical times. And I hope that what I’m doing will open the way for people to take a different path:” bit.ly/2QaAfyh
38/ Finally, when Netflix’s “Our Planet” was released in the spring, the cameraman Jamie McPherson said on a behind-the-scenes video that footage of walruses walking off cliffs was “the worst thing I’ve ever filmed.” What was happening? bit.ly/2SECDPo
39/39 Thanks for spending 2019 with us! For more of our journalism in 2020, subscribe to The Atlantic here: bit.ly/35iP5r2
