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In a decade that has already seen the first direct detection of gravitational waves and the discovery of the Higgs boson, many eyes are now focused deep underground on the experiments seeking to complete the trifecta with the first direct detection of dark matter. The existence of dark matter is indisputable, supported by observations ranging from single galaxies to the entire visible universe and spanning 13.7 billion years of cosmic evolution. Millions of dark matter particles from our own galaxy pass through your body every second, the vast majority leaving no trace. The few that do interact (perhaps a dozen over a lifetime) may leave behind recoiling atomic nuclei with about as much energy as a single x-ray photon, a signal easily lost amid backgrounds from natural radioactivity with rates billions of times higher than the dark matter signal. The hunt for dark matter and the fight against these backgrounds has spawned detector technologies ranging from cryogenic semiconductors to superheated freons. I will describe the unique ways in which the leading experiments are solving the background problem, give a few new ideas to get to the next level of dark matter sensitivity, and show the importance of a diverse field of experiments, not just for discovering dark matter but for understanding the dark matter signal after a discovery is made.