Time Person of the Year

For other uses, see Person of the Year.

Person of the Year (formerly Man of the Year) is an annual issue of the United States newsmagazine Time that features and profiles a person, group, idea or object that "for better or for worse, ...has done the most to influence the events of the year."

History

The tradition of selecting a Man of the Year began in 1927 with Time editors contemplating newsworthy stories possible during a slow news week. The idea was also an attempt to remedy the editorial embarrassment earlier that year of not having aviator Charles Lindbergh on its cover following his historic trans-Atlantic flight. By the end of the year, it was decided that a cover story featuring Lindbergh as the Man of the Year would serve both purposes.

Since then, individual people, classes of people, the computer (1982), and Planet Earth (1988) have all been selected for the special year-end issue. In 1999, the title was changed to Person of the Year. However, the only woman to win the renamed recognition individually have been "The Whistleblowers" (Cynthia Cooper, Coleen Rowley, and Sherron Watkins in 2002) and Melinda Gates (jointly with Bill Gates and Bono in 2005). Before that, four women were granted the title as individuals as Woman of the Year–Wallis Simpson in 1936, Soong May-ling (Madame Chiang Kai-shek) in 1937, Queen Elizabeth II in 1952, and Corazon Aquino in 1986. Several classes of people comprise both men and women or women only, namely Hungarian Freedom Fighter in 1956, "U.S. Scientists" in 1960, Twenty-Five and Under in 1966, The Middle Americans in 1969, "American Women" in 1975, "The American Soldier" in 2003, You in 2006, and "The Protester" in 2011 (represented on the cover by a woman).

Since the list began, every serving President of the United States has been a Person of the Year at least once with the exceptions of Calvin Coolidge, in office at time of the first issue, Herbert Hoover, the next U.S. president, and Gerald Ford. Most were named Person of the Year either the year they were elected or while they were in office; the only one to be given the title before being elected is Dwight D. Eisenhower, who won it in 1944 as Supreme Commander of the Allied Invasion Force, eight years before his election. He subsequently won the title again in 1959, while in office.

The December 31, 1999 issue of Time named Albert Einstein the Person of the Century. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Mahatma Gandhi were chosen as runners-up.

Franklin D. Roosevelt is the only person to have received the title three times–in 1932, 1934 and 1941.

Despite the magazine's frequent statements to the contrary, the designation is often regarded as an honor, and spoken of as an award or prize, simply based on many previous selections of admirable people. However Time magazine points out those such as Adolf Hitler in 1938, and Joseph Stalin in 1939 and again in 1942, and the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 have also been granted the title.

As a result of the public backlash it received from the United States for naming the Ayatollah Khomeini Man of the Year in 1979, Time has shied away from using figures that are controversial in the United States. Time's Person of the Year 2001—immediately following the September 11, 2001 attacks—was New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani, although the stated rules of selection, the individual or group of individuals who have had the biggest effect on the year's news, made Osama bin Laden a more likely choice. The issue that declared Giuliani the Person of the Year included an article that mentioned Time's earlier decision to elect the Ayatollah Khomeini and the 1999 rejection of Hitler as Person of the Century. The article seemed to imply that Osama bin Laden was a stronger candidate than Giuliani, as Adolf Hitler was a stronger candidate than Albert Einstein. The selections were ultimately based on what the magazine describes as who they believed had a stronger influence on history and who represented either the year or the century the most. According to Time, Rudolph Giuliani was picked for symbolizing the American response to the September 11th attacks, and Albert Einstein picked for representing a century of scientific exploration and wonder.

Another criticized choice was the 2006 selection of "You", representing most if not all people for advancing the information age by using the Internet (via e.g. blogs, YouTube, MySpace and Wikipedia).

Persons of the Year

Year	Image	Choice		Lifetime	Notes
1927		Charles Lindbergh	USA	1902–1974	Lindbergh was, in May 1927, the first person to fly a plane non-stop from New York City, USA to Paris, France.
1928		Walter Chrysler	USA	1875–1940	In 1928, Chrysler oversaw a merger of his company with Dodge, and began work on his eponymous building.
1929		Owen D. Young	USA	1874–1962	Young chaired a committee which authored the Young Plan, a program for settlement of German reparations debts after World War I.
1930		Mahatma Gandhi	British Raj	1869–1948	Gandhi was the leader of the Indian independence movement. In 1930, he led the Salt Satyagraha, a 240-mile march to protest the imposition of taxes on salt by the British Raj.
1931		Pierre Laval	France	1883–1945	Laval was a four-time Prime Minister of France.
1932		Franklin D. Roosevelt	USA	1882–1945	Roosevelt won the 1932 US Presidential election by a landslide, defeating the incumbent, Herbert Hoover.
1933		Hugh Samuel Johnson	USA	1882–1942	Johnson was then the director of the National Recovery Administration, an agency tasked by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt to bring industry, labor and government together to create codes of "fair practices" and set prices.
1934		Franklin D. Roosevelt	USA	1882–1945	Roosevelt was President of the United States from 1933 to 1945.
1935		Haile Selassie I	Ethiopia	1892–1975	Selassie was the Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. In October 1935, Italian forces invaded Ethiopia, starting the Second Italo-Abyssinian War.
1936		Wallis Simpson	USA	1896–1986	King Edward VIII abdicated his thrones to marry Simpson.
1937		Chiang Kai-shek	China	1887–1975	At the time, Chiang was Premier of the Republic of China.
		Soong May-ling	China	1898–2003	At the time, Soong was the wife of Chiang Kai-shek.
1938		Adolf Hitler	Germany	1889–1945	1938 saw the unification of Germany with Austria and the Sudetenland after the Anschluss and Munich Agreement respectively.
1939		Joseph Stalin	USSR	1878–1953
1940		Winston Churchill	UK	1874–1965
1941		Franklin D. Roosevelt	USA	1882–1945
1942		Joseph Stalin	USSR	1878–1953
1943		George Marshall	USA	1880–1959
1944		Dwight D. Eisenhower	USA	1890–1969
1945		Harry S. Truman	USA	1884–1972
1946		James F. Byrnes	USA	1879–1972	Then-U.S. Secretary of State. His speech, "Restatement of Policy on Germany", set the tone of future U.S. policy as it repudiated the Morgenthau Plan and gave the Germans hope for the future.
1947		George Marshall	USA	1880–1959	Wrote the Marshall Plan
1948		Harry S. Truman	USA	1884–1972
1949		Winston Churchill	UK	1874–1965	Man of the half-century
1950		The American fighting-man	USA		Representing Korean War troops
1951		Mohammad Mossadegh	Iran	1882–1967
1952		Elizabeth II	Commonwealth realms	1926–
1953		Konrad Adenauer	West Germany	1876–1967
1954		John Foster Dulles	USA	1888–1959
1955		Harlow Curtice	USA	1893–1962	Head of General Motors from 1953 to 1958.
1956		The Hungarian freedom fighter	Hungary
1957		Nikita Khrushchev	USSR	1894–1971
1958		Charles de Gaulle	France	1890–1970
1959		Dwight D. Eisenhower	USA	1890–1969
1960		American Scientists	USA		Represented by George Beadle, Charles Draper, John Enders, Donald A. Glaser, Joshua Lederberg, Willard Libby, Linus Pauling, Edward Purcell, Isidor Rabi, Emilio Segrè, William Shockley, Edward Teller, Charles Townes, James Van Allen, and Robert Woodward
1961		John F. Kennedy	USA	1917–1963
1962		Pope John XXIII	Holy See/Italy	1881–1963
1963		Martin Luther King, Jr.	USA	1929–1968
1964		Lyndon B. Johnson	USA	1908–1973
1965		William Westmoreland	USA	1914–2005
1966		The Inheritor			A generation: the man—and woman—of 25 and under.
1967		Lyndon B. Johnson	USA	1908–1973
1968		The Apollo 8 astronauts	USA		William Anders, Frank Borman, and Jim Lovell
1969		The Middle Americans	USA		Also referred to as the Silent Majority
1970		Willy Brandt	West Germany	1913–1992
1971		Richard Nixon	USA	1913–1994
1972		Richard Nixon	USA	1913–1994
		Henry Kissinger	USA	1923–
1973		John Sirica	USA	1904–1992	Judge who ordered Richard Nixon to turn over Watergate-related recordings.
1974		King Faisal	Saudi Arabia	1906–1975
1975		American women	USA		Represented by Susan Brownmiller, Kathleen Byerly, Alison Cheek, Jill Conway, Betty Ford, Ella Grasso, Carla Hills, Barbara Jordan, Billie Jean King, Carol Sutton, Susie Sharp, and Addie Wyatt
1976		Jimmy Carter	USA	1924–
1977		Anwar Sadat	Egypt	1918–1981
1978		Deng Xiaoping	China	1904–1997
1979		Ayatollah Khomeini	Iran	1902–1989
1980		Ronald Reagan	USA	1911–2004
1981		Lech Wałęsa	Poland	1943–
1982		The Computer			Machine of the Year
1983		Ronald Reagan	USA	1911–2004
		Yuri Andropov	USSR	1914–1984
1984		Peter Ueberroth	USA	1937–
1985		Deng Xiaoping	China	1904–1997
1986		Corazon C. Aquino	Philippines	1933–2009
1987		Mikhail Gorbachev	USSR	1931–
1988		The Endangered Earth			Planet of the Year
1989		Mikhail Gorbachev	USSR	1931–	Man of the Decade
1990		George H. W. Bush	USA	1924–
1991		Ted Turner	USA	1938–
1992		Bill Clinton	USA	1946–
1993		The Peacemakers	Palestinian Authority South Africa Israel		Represented by Yasser Arafat, F.W. de Klerk, Nelson Mandela, and Yitzhak Rabin
1994		Pope John Paul II	Holy See/Poland	1920–2005
1995		Newt Gingrich	USA	1943–
1996		David Ho	Taiwan/USA	1952–	Scientist, AIDS researcher.
1997		Andrew Grove	Hungary/USA	1936–
1998		Bill Clinton	USA	1946–	Time Magazine held its first online poll to decide the Person of the Year. Wrestler and activist Mick Foley won with over 50% of votes. Foley was removed from the poll, and the award was given to Clinton and Starr.
		Kenneth Starr	USA	1946–
1999		Jeffrey P. Bezos	USA	1964–	See also: Person of the Century
2000		George W. Bush	USA	1946–
2001		Rudolph Giuliani	USA	1944–
2002		The Whistleblowers	USA		Represented by Cynthia Cooper (WorldCom), Coleen Rowley (FBI) and Sherron Watkins (Enron)
2003		The American soldier	USA
2004		George W. Bush	USA	1946–
2005		The Good Samaritans	Ireland USA		Represented by Bono, Bill Gates, and Melinda Gates
2006		You			Represented by the individual content creator on the World Wide Web
2007		Vladimir Putin	Russia	1952–
2008		Barack Obama	USA	1961–
2009		Ben Bernanke	USA	1953–
2010		Mark Zuckerberg	USA	1984–
2011		The Protester			Representing many global protest movements – for example, the Arab Spring, the Indignants Movement, Tea Party movement and Occupy Movement – as well as protests in Greece, India, Russia and 2011–12 Chilean student protests among others
2012		Barack Obama	USA	1961–

See also

• Canadian Newsmaker of the Year (Time), the magazine's equivalent for Canadians only

External links

• TIME's Person of the Year: All 84! - slideshow by Life magazine
• "Time's Person of the Year 1927–2010". Time. 2011.