Time Person of the Year

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Person of the Year
1927 Man of the Year Charles Lindbergh, the award's inaugural winner
CountryUnited States
Presented byTime
Formerly called
  • Man of the Year
  • Woman of the Year
First awarded1927; 97 years ago (1927)
Websitewww.time.com/poy

Person of the Year (called Man of the Year or Woman of the Year until 1999)[1] is an annual issue of the American news magazine and website Time featuring a person, group, idea, or object that "for better or for worse ... has done the most to influence the events of the year".[2] The editors select the featured subject in a "secretive ... process", though the Time website or a partner organization also runs an annual online reader's poll that has no effect on the selection.[3][4]

Background[edit]

The tradition of selecting a "Man of the Year" began privately in 1927, with Time editors contemplating the news makers of the year after a series of "slow news days" before New Year's Day.[4] The idea originally focused on a Man of the Week before it was decided to use Lindbergh to represent the predominant story of 1927, with the magazine listing him as Man of the Year being published in early 1928.[4]

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 transatlantic flight.[4] 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.[5]

Before the online poll was instituted, "readers were invited to weigh in by mail."[4]

Selection[edit]

National leaders[edit]

Since the list began, every serving president of the United States has been a Man or Person of the Year at least once, with the exceptions of Calvin Coolidge (in office at the time of the first issue), Herbert Hoover (the subsequent president), and Gerald Ford (the only president never to have been elected to the office of president or vice president). Most were named Man or 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 was Dwight D. Eisenhower, in 1944, as Supreme Commander of the Allied Invasion Force, eight years before his first election. He subsequently received the title again in 1959 while in office. Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first chosen US president and is the only person to have received the title three times, first as president-elect (1932) and later as the incumbent president (1934 and 1941).

All countries' heads of state or government to have been chosen as Man, Woman, or Person of the Year (arranged in chronological order by country name, from the most frequently selected) are:

Number of selections Office Name
23 (14 unique leaders) President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt (1932, 1934, 1941); Harry S. Truman (1945, 1948); Dwight D. Eisenhower (1959); John F. Kennedy (1961); Lyndon B. Johnson (1964, 1967); Richard Nixon (1971, 1972); Jimmy Carter (1976); Ronald Reagan (1980, 1983); George H. W. Bush (1990); Bill Clinton (1992, 1998); George W. Bush (2000, 2004); Barack Obama (2008, 2012); Donald Trump (2016); and Joe Biden (2020)
6 (4 unique leaders) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin (1939, 1942); Nikita Khrushchev (1957); Yuri Andropov (1983); and Mikhail Gorbachev (1987, 1989)
4 Chancellor of Germany Adolf Hitler (1938); Konrad Adenauer (1953); Willy Brandt (1970); and Angela Merkel (2015)
3 Pope (Sovereign leader of the Vatican City) John XXIII (1962); John Paul II (1994); and Francis (2013)
2 (1 unique leader) Paramount leader of the People's Republic of China Deng Xiaoping (1978, 1985)
2 Prime Minister of France Pierre Laval (1931); and Charles de Gaulle (1958)
1 Premier of the Republic of China Chiang Kai-shek (1937)
1 President of Egypt Anwar Sadat (1977)
1 Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie (1935)
1 Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh (1951)
1 Supreme Leader of Iran Ruhollah Khomeini (1979)
1 Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Rabin (1993)
1 President of the Palestinian National Authority Yasser Arafat (1993)
1 President of the Philippines Corazon Aquino (1986)
1 President of Russia Vladimir Putin (2007)
1 King of Saudi Arabia Faisal (1974)
1 State President of South Africa F.W. de Klerk (1993)
1 President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy (2022)
1 Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill (1940)
1 Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms Elizabeth II (1952)
Notes

Winston Churchill was chosen a second time for the special "Man of the Half-Century" edition in 1949 while serving as Leader of the Opposition before his second premiership; Charles de Gaulle was chosen while being elected President of France before formally taking office; Lech Wałęsa and Nelson Mandela were chosen before being elected President of Poland and President of South Africa, respectively.

Women[edit]

Before 1999, four women were granted the title as individuals: three as "Woman of the Year"—Wallis Simpson (1936), Queen Elizabeth II (1952), and Corazon Aquino (1986)—and one as half of "Man and Wife of the Year", Soong Mei-ling (jointly with Chiang Kai-shek) in 1937.[6] "American Women" were recognized as a group in 1975. Other classes of people recognized comprise both men and women, such as "Hungarian Freedom Fighters" (1956), "U.S. Scientists" (1960), "The Inheritors" (1966), "The Middle Americans" (1969), "The American Soldier" (1950 and 2003), "You" (2006), "The Protester" (2011), and "Ebola Fighters" (2014). However, the title on the magazine remained "Man of the Year" for both the 1956 "Hungarian Freedom Fighter" and the 1966 "Twenty-five and Under" editions which both featured a woman standing behind a man, and "Men of the Year" on the 1960 "U.S. Scientists" edition which exclusively featured men on its cover. It was not until the 1969 edition on "The Middle Americans" that the title embraced "Man and Woman of the Year".

In 1999, the title was changed to the gender-neutral "Person of the Year" (its first recipient under the new name being Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com).[7] Women who have been selected for recognition after the renaming include "The Whistleblowers" (Cynthia Cooper, Coleen Rowley, and Sherron Watkins) in 2002; Melinda Gates (jointly with Bill Gates and Bono) in 2005; Angela Merkel (2015); "The Silence Breakers" (2017); Greta Thunberg (2019); Kamala Harris (jointly with Joe Biden) in 2020; and Taylor Swift (2023). To celebrate International Women's Day in 2020, Time editors released 89 new magazine covers, each showing women, in addition to the 11 already chosen, as counterparts to the Man of the Year choices from the past century.[8]

Groups and non-humans[edit]

Despite the name, the title is not just granted to individuals. Pairs of people such as married couples and political opponents, classes of people, and inanimate objects have all been selected for the special year-end issue.

Multiple named people

Classes of unnamed people

  • The American fighting-man / The American soldier (1950 and 2003)
  • The Hungarian freedom fighter (1956)
  • U.S. scientists (1960)
  • The Inheritor (1966)
  • Middle Americans (1969)
  • American women (1975)
  • You (2006)
  • The Protester (2011)
  • Ebola fighters (2014)
  • The Silence Breakers (2017)
  • The Guardians (2018)

Inanimate objects

  • The Computer (Machine of the Year, 1982)
  • The Endangered Earth (Planet of the Year, 1988)

Abstract concepts

  • The Spirit of Ukraine (2022)

Special editions[edit]

In 1949, Winston Churchill was named Man of the Half-Century,[9] and the last issue of 1989 named Mikhail Gorbachev as "Man of the Decade".[10] The December 31, 1999 issue of Time named Albert Einstein the "Person of the Century".[11] Both Franklin D. Roosevelt and Mahatma Gandhi were chosen as runners-up.[12] Aside from Einstein, the December 31 edition also named Persons of the Century for every century of the 2nd millennium: William the Conqueror for the 11th century, Saladin for the 12th century, Genghis Khan for the 13th century, Giotto for the 14th century, Johannes Gutenberg for the 15th century, Elizabeth I for the 16th century, Isaac Newton for the 17th century, Thomas Jefferson for the 18th century, and Thomas Edison for the 19th century.[13]

Controversial choices[edit]

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.[14] However, Time points out that controversial figures such as Adolf Hitler (1938); Joseph Stalin (1939 and 1942); Nikita Khrushchev (1957); and Ayatollah Khomeini (1979) have also been granted the title for their impact on events.[15] Nevertheless, as a result of the public backlash it received from the American audience for naming Khomeini Man of the Year in 1979, the magazine's editors have since shied away from using figures who are controversial in the United States, fearing reductions in sales or advertising revenue.[16]

Time's Person of the Year for 2001, immediately following the September 11 attacks, was Rudy Giuliani, who was then mayor of New York City.[17] The stated rules of selection—the individual or group of individuals who have had the bigger influence on the year's events—made Osama bin Laden the more likely choice that year; however, Giuliani was selected for symbolizing the American response to the attacks, in the same way that Albert Einstein was selected Person of the Century for representing a century of scientific exploration and wonder instead of Adolf Hitler, who was arguably a stronger candidate.[18] The selections were ultimately based on, as the magazine describes it, "who they believed had a stronger influence on history and who represented either the year or the century the most."

Withdrawn and alleged selections[edit]

In 1941, the fictional elephant Dumbo from Walt Disney's animated film of the same name was selected to be "Mammal of the Year", and a cover was created showing the title character in a formal portrait style. However, the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7 pre-empted the cover. The U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt was named Man of the Year for a record third time, although Dumbo's Mammal of the Year profile still appeared on the inside pages of the magazine.[19]

Filmmaker Michael Moore claims that director Mel Gibson cost him the opportunity to be Person of the Year alongside Gibson in 2004. Moore's controversial political documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 became the highest-grossing documentary of all time the same year Gibson's The Passion of the Christ became a box-office success and also caused significant controversy. Moore said in an interview "I got a call right after the '04 election from an editor from Time Magazine. He said,' Time Magazine has picked you and Mel Gibson to be Time's Person of the Year to put on the cover, Right and Left, Mel and Mike. The only thing you have to do is pose for a picture with each other. And do an interview together.' I said 'OK.' They call Mel up, he agrees. They set the date and time in LA. I'm to fly there. He's flying from Australia. Something happens when he gets home ... Next thing, Mel calls up and says, 'I'm not doing it. I've thought it over and it is not the right thing to do.' So they put Bush on the cover."[20]

On November 24, 2017, US president Donald Trump, who had this title the previous year, posted on the social media network Twitter that Time editors had told him he would "probably" be named Person of the Year for a second time, conditional on an interview and photo shoot, which he had refused. Time denied that they had made any such promises or conditions to Trump, who was named a runner-up.[21]

Persons of the Year[edit]

Year Image Choice Lifetime Notes Runners-up
1927 Charles Lindbergh 1902–1974 Lindbergh completed the first solo transatlantic flight in May 1927 by piloting his monoplane Spirit of St. Louis from Garden City, New York to Paris, France.
1928 Walter Chrysler 1875–1940 In 1928, Chrysler oversaw a merger of his company, Chrysler, with Dodge before beginning work on the Chrysler Building.
1929 Owen D. Young 1874–1962 Young chaired a committee which authored 1929's Young Plan, a program for settlement of German reparations after World War I.
1930 Mahatma Gandhi 1869–1948 Gandhi was the leader of India's 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 1883–1945 Laval was first appointed Prime Minister of France in 1931. He was popular in the American press at the time for opposing the Hoover Moratorium, a temporary freeze on World War I debt payments that was disliked in both France and the US.[22]
1932 Franklin D. Roosevelt 1882–1945 Roosevelt won the 1932 US presidential election by a landslide, defeating the incumbent, Herbert Hoover.
1933 Hugh S. Johnson 1882–1942 In 1933, Johnson was appointed director of the National Recovery Administration. US President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave him the task of bringing industry, labor and government together to create codes of "fair practices" and set prices.
1934 Franklin D. Roosevelt (2) 1882–1945 Roosevelt was President of the United States from 1933 to 1945. In 1934, Roosevelt's New Deal reforms were beginning to bear fruit.
1935 Haile Selassie 1892–1975 Selassie was Emperor of Ethiopia in 1935, when Italian forces invaded Ethiopia, starting the Second Italo-Abyssinian War.
1936 Wallis Simpson 1896–1986 In 1936, Simpson's relationship with King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom led the king to abdicate the throne to marry her.
1937 Chiang Kai-shek 1887–1975 Chiang was Premier of the Republic of China at the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937.
Soong Mei-ling 1898–2003 Soong was wife of Chiang Kai-shek from 1927 until his death in 1975. Addressed as Madame Chiang Kai-Shek by the magazine, she was recognized together with her husband as "Man & Wife of the Year".[6]
1938 Adolf Hitler 1889–1945 As Chancellor of Germany, Hitler oversaw the unification of Germany with Austria and the Sudetenland in 1938, after the Anschluss and Munich Agreement respectively. Instead of a conventional portrait, the cover was an illustration by Rudolph von Ripper entitled 'From the unholy organist, a hymn of hate'.[23]
1939 Joseph Stalin 1878–1953 In 1939, Stalin was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and de facto dictator of the Soviet Union. He oversaw the signing of a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany before invading eastern Poland.
1940 Winston Churchill 1874–1965 Churchill was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Dunkirk evacuation and the Battle of Britain.
1941 Franklin D. Roosevelt (3) 1882–1945 Roosevelt was President of the United States in 1941 during the attack on Pearl Harbor, declaration of war against Japan and resulting entry of the United States into World War II. The editors had already chosen Dumbo as their "Mammal of the Year" before the Pearl Harbor attack, but quickly changed it to Roosevelt.[19]
1942 Joseph Stalin (2) 1878–1953 By 1942, Stalin was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Premier of the Soviet Union, overseeing the Battle of Stalingrad (1942–1943).
1943 George C. Marshall 1880–1959 As United States Army Chief of Staff in 1943, General Marshall was instrumental in organizing US actions in World War II.
1944 Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890–1969 General Eisenhower was Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during 1944's Operation Overlord.
1945 Harry S. Truman 1884–1972 Truman became President of the United States after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945, authorizing the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
1946 James F. Byrnes 1882–1972 In 1946, Byrnes was United States Secretary of State during the Iran crisis of 1946, taking an increasingly hardline position in opposition to Stalin. His speech, "Restatement of Policy on Germany", set the tone of future US policy, repudiating the Morgenthau Plan economic policies and giving Germans hope for the future.
1947 George C. Marshall (2) 1880–1959 Appointed United States Secretary of State in 1947, Marshall was the architect of the Marshall Plan.
1948 Harry S. Truman (2) 1884–1972 Truman was elected in his own right as President of the United States in 1948, which is considered to be one of the greatest election upsets in American history.[24][25][26]
1949 Winston Churchill (2) 1874–1965 Proclaimed as the "Man of the half-century", Churchill had led Britain and the Allies to victory in WWII. In 1949, Churchill was Leader of the Opposition.
1950 The American fighting-man Representing US troops involved in the Korean War (1950–1953)
1951 Mohammad Mossadegh 1882–1967 In 1951, Mossadegh was appointed Prime Minister of Iran and expelled western oil companies, starting the Abadan Crisis.
1952 Elizabeth II 1926–2022 In 1952, Elizabeth acceded to the throne of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms upon the death of her father, King George VI.
1953 Konrad Adenauer 1876–1967 In 1953, Adenauer was re-elected as Chancellor of West Germany.
1954 John Foster Dulles 1888–1959 As United States Secretary of State in 1954, Dulles was architect of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization.
1955 Harlow Curtice 1893–1962 Curtice was President of General Motors (GM) from 1953 to 1958. In 1955, GM sold five million vehicles and became the first corporation to earn US$1 billion in a single year.[27]
1956 The Hungarian freedom fighter Representing Hungarian revolutionaries involved in the 1956 uprising against the Soviet-dominated government, which was put down by the Soviet Army
1957 Nikita Khrushchev 1894–1971 In 1957, Khrushchev consolidated his leadership of the Soviet Union, surviving a plot to dismiss him by Stalinist members within the Presidium, and leading the Soviet Union into the Space Race with the launch of Sputnik 1.
1958 Charles de Gaulle 1890–1970 De Gaulle was appointed Prime Minister of France in May 1958 and, following the collapse of the Fourth Republic and establishment of the Fifth Republic, was then elected as President of France in December.
1959 Dwight D. Eisenhower (2) 1890–1969 Eisenhower was President of the United States from 1953 to 1961. In 1959, Eisenhower arranged the state visit by Nikita Khrushchev to the United States and toured several countries, becoming the first US president to visit India.[28]
1960 U.S. Scientists Time claimed in 1960 "science is at the apogee of its power for good or evil", although it noted that "the 15 men [on the cover] include two or three whose greatest work is probably behind them".
The cover and piece spotlights the following scientists:
[29]
1961 John F. Kennedy 1917–1963 Kennedy was inaugurated as President of the United States in 1961, ordering the failed invasion of Cuba by U.S.-trained Cuban exiles.
1962 John XXIII 1881–1963 Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1958 to 1963. In 1962, he volunteered as a mediator in the Cuban Missile Crisis between the U.S. and USSR, gaining praise from both sides. He also initiated the Second Vatican Council that same year.
1963 Martin Luther King Jr. 1929–1968 A leader of the American Civil rights movement, King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963.
1964 Lyndon B. Johnson 1908–1973 Johnson was elected in his own right as President of the United States in 1964, before securing the passage of the Civil Rights Act, declaring a War on poverty, and escalating US involvement in the Vietnam War.
1965 William Westmoreland 1914–2005 General Westmoreland was commander of US forces in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
1966 The Inheritor Representing a generation of American men and women, aged 25 and under – the Baby Boom generation, who in 1966 made up nearly half the population and were influential both in the counterculture of the 1960s and as drafted soldiers in the Vietnam War. The face most prominently seen on the cover representing the generation was that of Thomas M. McLaughlin.[30][31]
1967 Lyndon B. Johnson (2) 1908–1973 Johnson was President of the United States from 1963 to 1969. Time noted that it had been a year of setbacks and failures for Johnson, with race riots across the US, deepening involvement in the Vietnam War, and the Dump Johnson movement within his own party.[32]
1968 The Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman: 1928–2023
Jim Lovell: Born 1928
William Anders: Born 1933 		In 1968, the American crew of Apollo 8 (William Anders, Frank Borman and Jim Lovell) became the first humans to travel beyond low Earth orbit, orbiting the Moon and paving the way for the first human Moon landings in 1969.
1969 The Middle Americans Conservative, small-town Americans, also referred to as the silent majority. Time saw Middle America as the driving force behind Richard Nixon's 1968 election win, the background of the American astronauts of Apollo 11, and the conservative side of debates on social issues such as school desegregation, prayer in public schools, sex education and drugs policy.[33][34]
1970 Willy Brandt 1913–1992 As Chancellor of West Germany, Brandt was acknowledged for "seeking to bring about a fresh relationship between East and West" through his "bold approach to the Soviet Union and the East Bloc". In 1970, Brandt renounced German claims on Poland and recognized East Germany, and acknowledged the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Poland with the symbolic Kniefall von Warschau.[35]
1971 Richard Nixon 1913–1994 Nixon was President of the United States from 1969 to 1974. In 1971, Nixon had withdrawn the US dollar from the gold standard, triggering the Nixon shock, created the Economic Stabilization Program, and re-opened relations with communist China.[36]
1972 Richard Nixon (2) 1913–1994 As President of the United States, Nixon visited China in 1972, the first U.S. president to do so. Nixon later secured the SALT I pact with the Soviet Union before being re-elected in one of the largest landslide election victories in American history.
Henry Kissinger 1923–2023 Kissinger, as Nixon's National Security Advisor, traveled with the President to China in 1972, and was negotiating peace in the Vietnam War.
1973 John Sirica 1904–1992 In 1973, as Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Sirica ordered President Nixon to turn over Watergate-related recordings of White House conversations.
1974 Faisal 1906–1975 Faisal, King of Saudi Arabia, was acknowledged in the wake of the oil crisis of 1973–1974, caused by Saudi Arabia withdrawing its oil from world markets in protest at Western support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War.
5
1975 American women Highlighting the successes of the American feminist movement and "the status of the everyday, usually anonymous woman, who moved into the mainstream of jobs, ideas and policy making".
The cover and piece spotlights the following women:
[39]
9
1976 Jimmy Carter Born 1924 In 1976, Carter was elected President of the United States, defeating incumbent President Gerald Ford.
1977 Anwar Sadat 1918–1981 Sadat, as President of Egypt, traveled to Israel in 1977—the first Arab leader to do so—to discuss normalization of Egypt–Israel relations.
1978 Deng Xiaoping 1904–1997 Deng, as Vice Premier, overthrew Hua Guofeng to assume de facto control over China in 1978, as Paramount leader.
4
1979 Ruhollah Khomeini 1902–1989 Khomeini led the 1979 Iranian Revolution, establishing himself as Supreme Leader.
4
1980 Ronald Reagan 1911–2004 Reagan was elected President of the United States in 1980, defeating incumbent President Jimmy Carter.
4
1981 Lech Wałęsa Born 1943 Leader of the Polish Solidarity trade union and architect of the Gdańsk Agreement until his arrest by the communist authorities and the imposition of martial law in Poland in December 1981
4
1982 The Computer Denoted "Machine of the Year" to herald the dawn of the Information Age
The feature spotlights the following people, in order:
4
1983 Ronald Reagan (2) 1911–2004 In 1983, as President of the United States, Reagan ordered the invasion of Grenada and championed the Strategic Defense Initiative.
4
Yuri Andropov 1914–1984 Andropov, as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was a critic of the Strategic Defense Initiative and tried to revive stagnating Soviet economy. Andropov was hospitalized in August 1983 and subsequently died in 1984.
1984 Peter Ueberroth Born 1937 Ueberroth orchestrated the organization of the 1984 Summer Olympics, which involved a Soviet-led boycott.
4
1985 Deng Xiaoping (2) 1904–1997 As Paramount Leader of China, Deng was acknowledged the need for "sweeping economic reforms that have challenged Marxist orthodoxies". In 1985, Deng had lifted price controls and eased the restrictions on private ownership and business.[57]
4
1986 Corazon Aquino 1933–2009 Aquino was a prominent figure in 1986's People Power Revolution, being elected president of the Philippines.
3
1987 Mikhail Gorbachev 1931–2022 As general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and leader of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev oversaw perestroika and glasnost political reforms in 1987, aimed at liberalizing Soviet society.
5
1988 The Endangered Earth Planet of the Year, representing the growing environmental movement as well as several natural and ecological disasters that struck in 1988: among them were the 1988–1989 North American drought, "syringe tide", 1988 Bangladesh cyclone and 1988 Armenian earthquake, as well as ozone depletion, global warming, radioactive contamination and deforestation.[64]
1989 Mikhail Gorbachev (2) 1931–2022 Acknowledged as "Man of the Decade". Gorbachev, as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Soviet leader), oversaw 1989's first free Soviet elections in history before the fragmentation of the Eastern Bloc and overthrow of Soviet-dominated communist governments in Eastern Europe.
1990

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