It is not such a long time ago since ‘40 years’ was the average life expectancy of a human being anywhere in the world, and under different historical circumstances we might have gathered for a funeral mass or remembrance ceremony rather than to celebrate a fortieth anniversary.
But the relentless pace of human progress on all fronts during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries mean that longer average life expectancies have emerged as the norm and it appears to be almost within our grasp to master disease and poverty.