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A little background on TIME Person of the Year: Ever since Charles Lindbergh was proclaimed the Man of the Year for 1927 in the January 2, 1928, issue, TIME magazine has annually designated one man, woman, couple, or concept that had the most influence on the world during the previous 12 months. The editors apparently didn’t think that naming Lindbergh Man of the Year would be particularly noteworthy—in fact, the actual article about him is fairly brief and not even easy to find within the magazine. But, according to a letter to readers that appeared in 1944’s edition (Man of the Year: Dwight Eisenhower), it all started by accident. Here’s what happened: New Year’s week of 1928 had been a string of slow news days. As the magazine’s publication…

2015 CHANCELLOR OF GERMANY Angela Merkel Time’s 2015 Person of the Year cover story notes that “Leaders are tested only when people don’t want to follow.” The year 2015 was a test for Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel, who spent the first 25 years of her life living in East Germany. In the face of opposition, she offered tough love and mercy to those in need while enduring harsh criticism for doing it. First, Greece’s debts were threatening the euro. Merkel pulled from her experience watching East Germany’s economy crumble when the Berlin Wall fell. She offered a bailout to Greece in exchange for strict austerity measures. The Greeks resisted, but they were eventually forced to accept her terms or get expelled from the European Union. They called her “Little…

1997 CHAIRMAN & CEO OF INTEL Andrew Grove In 1997, The microchip was the dynamo of a new economy marked by a strong stock market and low levels of unemployment and inflation in the U.S. The microchip had become—like the steam engine, electricity, and the assembly line—an advance that propelled a new economy. Andrew Grove, chairman and CEO of Intel, was the person most responsible for the amazing advancement in the power and innovative potential of microchips. In 1997, Intel made nearly 90% of the planet’s PC microprocessors, and the company was worth $115 billion (more than IBM). The decade’s digital revolution provoked debate over what tech’s role in society should be. Do the benefits outweigh the potential challenges? When TIME asked Grove, he responded as one would expect…

1987 | 1989 GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION Mikhail Gorbachev By the Time he was named Person of the Year in 1987, Mikhail Gorbachev had become a symbol of hope for a new kind of Soviet Union: more open and more concerned with the welfare of its citizens and less with the spread of its ideology systems abroad. Virtually everything about his country and its place in world affairs seemed less ponderous and less opaque than it did before he became General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1985. Domestically, Gorbachev legalized some small-scale private enterprises and gave state industries new freedoms. By 1987, his true test remained to be seen—whether the Soviet Union would be able to produce better food, clothing, and shelter…

1977 PRESIDENT OF EGYPT Anwar Sadat In November 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat changed the course of Middle Eastern events when he became the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel to help bring peace to the Middle East, and the whole world watched. President Sadat’s extraordinary pilgrimage transformed the political realities of a region blackened and embittered by impermeable hatreds and chronic war. In one stroke, the old rules of the Arab-Israeli blood feud no longer applied. Many of the endless hurdles to negotiation seemed to dissolve. Not in three decades had the dream of a real peace seemed more plausible. Sadat was named TIME’s 1977 Person of the Year for his willingness to seize upon a fresh approach, for his display of personal and political courage, and…

1970 CHANCELLOR OF WEST GERMANY Willy Brandt Twenty-Five years after the end of war II, the results of the war remained unresolved, so West Germany’s chancellor, Willy Brandt, set out to create a fresh relationship between West and East. He initiated Ostpolitik (Eastern policy) in an effort to improve rapport in the region. In 1970, Brandt established stronger ties with East Germany and signed treaties with the Soviet Union and Poland. While visiting the latter, he famously knelt and took a moment of silence at the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes, symbolically recognizing the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Poland. The gesture is referred to as Kniefall von Warschau (the Warsaw genuflection). In its 1970 Person of the Year cover story, TIME reported, “As the theme for a young decade, [Brandt’s…

1955 PRESIDENT OF GENERAL MOTORS Harlow Curtice The year 1955 brought a wave of economic prosperity across the country. Perhaps the most significant symbol of America’s expanding economy was the automobile. In 1955, 8 million American automobiles were produced and sold, half of which were made and marketed by General Motors under the leadership of its president, Harlow Curtice. At the time, GM was the world’s biggest manufacturing corporation, the first to record $1 billion in net profits in a year. As TIME admits in its 1955 Person of the Year story, being a great business mogul doesn’t immediately qualify one to become Person of the Year, but the “phenomenal figures measure [Curtice] off as first among scores of equals whose skill, daring, and foresight are forever opening new…

1952 BRITISH QUEEN Elizabeth II When 25-year-old Princess Elizabeth was vacationing in Kenya with her husband, Philip, in February 1952, she had no idea that a call would come that would change her life forever. Her father, King George VI, had died, and she was now the Queen of England. She rushed home to trade her life of relatively careless luxury for one of steadfast duty. The British (and most of the rest of the world) were weary and discouraged in 1952 and needed a breath of fresh air. Elizabeth’s significance was, as TIME reported in January 1953, of “a fresh young blossom on roots that had weathered many a season of wintry doubt.” After the loss of two male monarchs, the young queen brought to mind the “great…

1943 | 1947 CHIEF OF STAFF OF THE U.S. ARMY & 50TH U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE George C. Marshall When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, General George C. Marshall began his work organizing the largest military expansion in U.S. history. He increased the number of soldiers, established a training program, invested in and around air power, and procured modern equipment, all while staving off hastily planned and ill-advised military operations. He knew that if the U.S. entered WWII, it needed an army that was big in numbers and well prepared. When the U.S. finally entered the war, he took command of the European invasion, and the Allies started to break the Axis. According to TIME’s January 1944 Person of the Year profile, Marshall’s level-headed service and commitment to morale…

1932 | 1934 | 1941 32ND PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES Franklin D. Roosevelt TIME named FDR Person of the Year three times, more any other U.S. President. The first time was for 1932, the year the governor of New York defeated Herbert Hoover by a landslide and became the 32nd U.S. president. In 1932, America was still deep in the throes of the Great Depression, and poor, hungry voters desperately sought a beacon of strength and hope. Despite his physical limitations caused by a bout with polio, FDR promised both. His campaign focused on his vision of a New Deal that called for the vigorous creation of government programs to produce relief, recovery, and reform. America listened. FDR helped Americans start to rebuild faith in themselves, famously asserting,…

1928 BUSINESS PERSON Walter Chrysler In 1928, TIME described the quick rise of Walter Chrysler: “…twelve months of extraordinary activity. From motor man with one product, he had become one of the chief U.S. industrialists. Undeniably, he had been the outstanding businessman of the year.” That year, as the founder and first president of the Chrysler Corp., he brought the Plymouth automobile to market, acquired the Dodge Motor Co., and introduced a new line of affordable commercial cars, cementing his company as an auto-producing giant. The same year, he announced his plans to build the Chrysler Building, a 1,046-foot Art Deco skyscraper that stood as the world’s tallest building for 11 months. Of this epic endeavor, he simply said, “I like to build things. I like to do things.…

2017 #METOO DISRUPTERS The Silence Breakers #MeToo was started to empower sexually assaulted people (especially young and vulnerable women of color) through empathy and solidarity. It encouraged victims to speak out about their experiences, call attention to the issue, and form strength in numbers. TIME’s cover features strawberry picker Isabel Pascual (a pseudonym), lobbyist Adama Iwu, actor Ashley Judd, software engineer Susan Fowler, singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, and a hospital worker who wished to remain anonymous. In addition to the cover subjects, the 2017 Person of the Year story spotlights the following women: Bex Bailey, charity worker Selma Blair, actor Tarana Burke, activist Jessica Cantlon, professor Terry Crews, actor Sara Gelser, politician Blaise Godbe Lipman, filmmaker Megyn Kelly, journalist Celeste Kidd, professor Rose McGowan, actor Juana Melara, housekeeper Jane Merrick,…

2005 STEWARDS ON A GLOBAL MISSION The Good Samaritans In 2005 the world’s poor needed people to get interested, get mad, and then get to work. And that is what Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates, and Bono did. Their alliance was an unlikely one, but it worked—an engineer’s job is to make things work; a rock star’s job is to grab attention. The Gateses started the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) in 2000, merging the Will H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation. In developing countries, it focused on improving people’s health and giving them a chance to raise themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the U.S., it sought to ensure all people could succeed in school and in life. Bono’s Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa…

1975 CHANGE-MAKERS American Women The Person of the Year for 1975 symbolized the ascending power and status of women in many realms, acknowledging the average woman’s pursuit of equality at home, at the office, and in society. “Enough U.S. women have so deliberately taken possession of their lives,” the cover story read, “that the event is spiritually equivalent to the discovery of a new continent.” TIME gave the following 12 women the spotlight: Susan Brownmiller, author of Against Our Will Kathleen Byerly, first female captain in the U.S. Navy Alison Cheek, first female Episcopalian minister Jill Conway, first female president of Smith College Ella Grasso, first female governor of Connecticut Betty Ford, politically active as First Lady of the U.S. Carla Hills, first female U.S. Secretary of Housing and…

1956 FACES OF HOPE The Hungarian Freedom Fighter On October 23, 1956, a crowd of about 20,000 protesters, led by a group of students and intellectuals, gathered beside a statue of the Hungarian national hero General Józef Bem to demand independence from Soviet occupation and freedom for the Hungarian people. It was a romantic idea, indeed—the Hungarians were up against Goliath-like Soviet power, but they fought. A 12-day uprising followed, and thousands were killed before the Soviets succeeded in squelching the attempt. The Hungarian uprising was not successful or well organized, but it was significant. It marked a point when the common people, long oppressed by the Russian police state, united and fought back. The street and rooftop combatants battled with valor, pride, and pageantry knowing the odds were…

Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs Managing Editor Lily Rothman Creative Director D.W. Pine Senior Design Coordinator Skye Quinn Director of Photography Katherine Pomerantz Project Editor & Writer Julie Blume Benedict Project Art Director Courtney Lentz Project Copy Editor Mary-Liz Shaw CEO Jessica Sibley COO Mark Howard Chief Revenue Officer Eric Kelliher Retail Sales & Business Development Lisa MacDonald Consumer Marketing Maya Draisin ON THE COVER Photos: Taylor Swift, Queen Elizabeth II, Apollo 8 Astronauts, John F. Kennedy Covers: The Guardians, Jimmy Carter, The Good Samaritans, The American Soldier, Greta Thunberg, Barack Obama Credits Cover TAS2023/Getty Images; Bettmann (2)/Getty Images; HUM Images/Getty Images Inside Front Cover John Shearer/Getty Images 3 Fernando Leon/TAS23/Getty Images 4 Buda Mendes/TAS23/Getty Images; John Shearer/Getty Images 5 Buda Mendes/TAS23/Getty Images 7 Kena Betancur/Getty Images 8 John Macdougall/Getty Images…

2023 CULTURAL PHENOMENON Taylor Swift Taylor Swift is telling me a story, and when Taylor Swift tells you a story, you listen, because you know it’s going to be good—not only because she’s had an extraordinary life, but because she’s an extraordinary storyteller. This one is about a time she got her heart broken, although not in the way you might expect. She was 17, she says, and she had booked the biggest opportunity of her life so far—a highly coveted slot opening for country superstar Kenny Chesney on tour. “This was going to change my career,” she remembers. “I was so excited.” But a couple weeks later, Swift arrived home to find her mother Andrea sitting on the front steps of their house. “She was weeping,” Swift says.…

2009 CHAIRMAN OF THE U.S. FEDERAL RESERVE Ben Bernanke In 2009, the economy was the overriding news story, and it was a lousy one. Headlines sang of layoffs, bankruptcies, foreclosures, “new frugality,” and “new normal.” They scoffed at the bailouts and bonuses. But there were some hopeful spots too: The Dow was rebounding, signaling that the Great Recession may be ending, thanks to Ben Bernanke. To say that the Federal Reserve is complicated is an understatement—Bernanke’s actions were widely misunderstood and highly criticized. But he was the right man in the right role at just the right time. Before President George W. Bush placed him on the U.S. Federal Reserve, Bernanke was a professor of economics at Princeton University and a scholar of the Great Depression. He was, perhaps,…

1996 AIDS TREATMENT PIONEER Dr. David Ho Dr. David Ho gave hope to millions in the fight against AIDS. Through his work, he successfully lowered the virus count in patients who received a combination of new and powerful drugs when they’d only just been infected, changing the disease profile from terminal to manageable. The tireless work by Ho and his colleagues is one of the reasons AIDS is no longer a defining disease of our time. In the early 1980s, the Harvard Medical School grad saw patients with a puzzling array of infections. Although nobody knew it then, these were some of the earliest known cases of AIDS. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Ho suspected from the beginning that the ailment was viral in nature, and he became the…

1986 PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINES Corazon Aquino In 1986, Corazon Aquino became the first female president of the Philippines. She was an unlikely candidate: Prior to her fateful run for office, the quiet, well-born devout Catholic was the wife of the outspoken Liberal Party member Benigno Aquino Jr. and the doting mother to five children. Many expected her husband to take power at the end of Ferdinand Marcos’ brutal dictatorship, but Marcos had other plans—his henchmen murdered Benigno in 1983. After her husband’s death, Corazon Aquino became the leader of the opposition and, in February 1986, ran for president after Marcos, whose regime was rife with intimidation and fraud, announced a snap election to legitimize his power. Aquino was proclaimed the winner after her supporters took to the streets…

1976 U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT Jimmy Carter Democrat Jimmy Carter narrowly defeated incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential election, which TIME referred to as “something of a political miracle.” Just a year prior, roughly 40% of Americans didn’t even know who the single-term Georgia governor was. Before running for president, the charismatic Southerner was an Annapolis graduate, a Navy officer, a nuclear engineer, a successful farmer, and a businessman, which made him seem empathetic to the variety of problems facing everyday Americans. In his acceptance speech, he addressed the common people, “Too many have had to suffer at the hands of a political economic elite who have shaped decisions and never had to account for mistakes or to suffer from injustice.” As TIME observed in early 1977, “One…

1963 AMERICA’S GANDHI Martin Luther King Jr. The year 1963 marked the boiling point for racial tensions in America, and Martin Luther King Jr. was at the center of it. Between January 16 and March 29, 1963, the civil rights leader went on a whirlwind speaking tour, presenting 28 speeches in 16 cities across the nation. In April, he led demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama, where law enforcement officers beat countless protesters and jailed more than 3,600. King intended to get the nation’s attention, and he did. In the months following, 800 Black-led demonstrations and sit-ins popped up all over the country. In August, King was one of the leaders of the March on Washington, where nearly a quarter of a million attendees of all races gathered around the steps…

1954 U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE John Foster Dulles John Foster Dulles went about his job as a missionary-at-large. According to TIME, in 1954, he logged 101,521 miles on journeys all over the world to block communist gains in Southeast Asia. His efforts culminated in the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), which was comprised of eight countries. Of the eight SEATO members, only two were in Southeast Asia. The rest were powers that had vested interests in squashing communist uprisings in the region. Because SEATO failed to coordinate the military efforts of its members, it is not considered a great historical success, but its cultural and education funding has provided long-term benefits to people living in Southeast Asian countries. SEATO disbanded in 1977. However, in January 1955, the TIME editors…

1945 | 1948 33RD PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES Harry Truman At the start of 1945, Missouri-born Harry Truman was the “common man’s common man” U.S. vice president. Truman barely saw President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the first few months of their term; he was not even briefed about the U.S. development of atomic weapons. But when FDR died on April 12, 1945, the mounting problems of WWII were set solely in Truman’s hands. When he learned of FDR’s death, he told reporters, “I don’t know if you fellas ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me what happened yesterday, I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me.” Although the war in Europe officially came to…

1940 | 1949 PRIME MINISTER OF THE UNITED KINGDOM Winston Churchill “December 31, 1940, was not only the end of a year; it was the end of a decade—the most terrifying of the 20th Century.”—TIME, January 6, 1941 When Winston Churchill became Prime Minister in May 1940, just as the Nazis descended within U.K. borders, he was the larger-than-life figure the country needed. The Nazis had conquered five nations that year, and their goal was to take Britain by the end of the summer. Under Churchill’s leadership, it was not to be, but he had to rally to make it happen. In his first address to the House of Commons, he famously said, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat,” and he asked the rest…

1930 INDIAN REVOLUTIONARY Mahatma Gandhi Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent crusade against British colonialism landed him in South African and Indian prisons many times during his life, but his arrest on May 5, 1930, was the one that prompted TIME to name him Person of the Year. In March 1930, Gandhi launched a satyagraha (passive political resistance movement) against the British salt monopoly and subsequent taxes, and he wrote a letter to the viceroy of India condemning British rule. Then, along with 78 volunteers, he marched to the salt mines of Dandi to mine salt himself, a violation of law. During the 240-mile, 25-day journey, Gandhi stopped to speak to large crowds that gathered along the route. When he arrived in Dandi, thousands gathered in support. He was eventually arrested and…

2020 U.S PRESIDENT-ELECT & VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT Joe Biden & Kamala Harris In 2020, U.S. Presidential candidate Joe Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, managed to knock off an incumbent president for just the 10th time in American history. The Biden-Harris ticket beat the Trump-Pence team by 7 million votes. The heated campaign polarized the country, and it was the first of its kind. COVID-19 was ripping across the world, so Biden could not connect with everyday people or his staff in the traditional ways. This made Biden’s choice of running mate more important than just balancing the ticket—he needed someone who represented a diverse America. He found it in U.S. Senator and former Attorney General of California Kamala Harris, the daughter of an Indian-born mother and Jamaican-born father.…

2014 SELFLESS LIFESAVERS The Ebola Fighters Up until 2014, The Ebola Virus popped up in rural African villages every few years. But in 2014, an outbreak turned into an epidemic, due, in part, to improvements in Africa’s rural infrastructure that allowed people to move around more freely and spread the virus. To control the Ebola outbreak, many health-care workers had to risk their own lives. These heroes were featured in the cover story: Dr. Jerry Brown, medical director at the Eternal Love Winning Africa Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia: “I always had the fear of myself or one of my staff getting infected.” Dr. Kent Brantly, a physician with Samaritan’s Purse and the first American to be infected in 2014: “Ebola is a humiliating disease that strips you of your…

2003 IN IRAQ AND BEYOND The American Soldier There is no such thing as a typical platoon. Every one has a story to tell about the costs of war and the price of peace, and what you learn getting from one to the next. But in contrast to most armed forces in the rest of the world, American pilots, sailors, and soldiers are volunteers. In 2003, U.S. troops were serving in 146 countries, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. In March 2003, U.S.-led forces initiated the first stage of the Iraq War in an attempt, they claimed, to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people. The United Nations and NATO were divided as to whether it was just;…

1968 SPACE PIONEERS The Apollo 8 Astronauts Three men, Colonel Frank Borman, Captain James Lovell Jr., and Major William Anders, were named Person of the Year in 1968. In a historic 147-hour flight, the trio of astronauts became the first humans to orbit the moon. It was a national triumph when America needed it most, as 1968 was a tough year: The Vietnam War dragged on, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, students protested against the “Establishment,” and President Lyndon B. Johnson’s popularity was at a low point. TIME also credited the 20,000 contractors and 300,000 engineers, technicians, and workers who propelled the country’s space effort in the decade prior, as well as earlier astronauts, such as Alan Shepherd and John Glenn, who bravely journeyed…

1950 DESTINY’S DRAFTEE The American Fighting-Man In 1950, there was no clear candidate for TIME Person of the Year for the first time. So editors made the Person of the Year a symbol: The American Fighting-Man. “Fighting-man” was not the role the U.S. serviceman involved in the Korean War had sought, either individually or as a nation. In the words of TIME in the cover story, “The U.S. fighting-man was not civilization’s crusader, but destiny’s draftee.… Most of the men in U.S. uniform around the world had enlisted voluntarily…few had thought they would fight, and fewer still had foreseen the incredibly dirty and desperate war that waited for them. They hated it, as soldiers in all lands and times have hated wars, but the American had some special reasons…

2019 CLIMATE CRUSADER Greta Thunberg In 2019, Greta Thunberg, an ordinary 16-year-old from Sweden, got the world’s attention. Her focus: getting leaders across the globe to take the climate threat seriously and take action. What became a global movement started with breaking the rules. Beginning in August 2018, Thunberg skipped school and spent her days in front of the Swedish Parliament building, holding a sign that read skolstrejk för klimatet: “school strike for climate.” Then, she addressed the U.N., met with Pope Francis, scrapped with President Donald Trump, and called on young people across the world to “climate strike” on September 20, 2019. TIME reported that 4 million did—it was the largest climate demonstration in history. In 2019, Collins English Dictionary made Thunberg’s phrase “climate strike” its word of…

2008 | 2012 U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT Barack Obama In November 2008, when American voters chose Barack Obama to be the next president, the country’s shattered confidence needed a bailout just as much as the failed banks and struggling automakers did. The stock market was plunging, credit was tight, and unemployment was at 6.8% and climbing. Obama’s campaign theme was change—the kind of nuts-and-bolts change that could be seen and measured. The American people selected their first Black president, a relatively unknown Democratic senator from Illinois, because he seemed the most likely candidate to make that change happen. After the election, veteran Democratic pollster Peter Hart put together a focus group to ask Virginia voters why they thought their state that gave George W. Bush an 8-point victory in 2004 chose…

1991 FOUNDER OF CNN Ted Turner After his father died by suicide in 1963, the then 24-year-old Ted Turner took over the family’s advertising business and turned it into a global enterprise. Turner’s list of accomplishments is long: He founded the first TV superstation, he bought the Atlanta Braves, and he won America’s Cup, just to name a few. He is known, even in entrepreneurial circles, as a fearless risk-taker. Perhaps Turner’s greatest gamble was founding CNN, the first 24-hour TV news network, in 1980. For most of the Gulf War, CNN was the prime source of news, information, and up-to-the-minute political intelligence. CNN put a spotlight on global affairs, forcing despotic governments to do their bloody deeds, if they dare, before a watching world. Its very existence compelled…

1978 | 1985 CHINA’S PARAMOUNT LEADER Deng Xiaoping Through the mid 1970s, China’s economy was weak, and the violent, disastrous Maoist Cultural Revolution left its people spiritless. In 1977, Deng Xiaoping launched a tremendous enterprise to propel China into the modern world. He was the principal architect of the Four Modernizations—an attempt to simultaneously improve China’s agriculture, industry, science and technology, and defense. Deng eschewed the once sacred Maoist principle of national self-reliance and opened China’s gates to foreign visitors and businesses. TIME reported that in 1977, 530,000 tourists visited the country, as did thousands of capitalists seeking new investments and markets. One would have been wise to do so: China was home to a quarter of the world’s population. Deng’s China gave Coca-Cola exclusive selling rights, permitted Pierre…

1973 SEEKER OF TRUTH John J. Sirica The worst political scandal in U.S. history was underway in 1973 when John Sirica, a U.S. district judge in Washington, D.C., forced Watergate into the investigative light of day. The White House insisted the Watergate break-in was “a third-rate burglary,” but Sirica was not buying it. As the investigation unfolded, Watergate conspirators were charged with an appalling litany of crimes, including perjury, burglary, illegal wiretapping, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, fraud, extortion, solicitation of illegal campaign contributions, violation of campaign funding laws, subornation of perjury, illegal distribution of campaign literature, and various forms of conspiracy to commit illegal acts. As President Nixon made blanket denials, resisted subpoenas, and claimed executive privilege, Sirica skillfully navigated uncharted waters to find the truth. In…

1961 35TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES John F. Kennedy When John F. Kennedy was elected in November 1960, he had the confident spirit of a war hero—at 43, he was the youngest U.S. president ever to hold the job. His campaign promises for a “new frontier” and to “get America moving again” suggested all the U.S. needed was vim and vigor. But after his first year as the leader of the free world, he found that it was hard enough just to keep the old problems from getting out of hand. According to TIME, “He learned better; but learn he did. And in so doing he not only made 1961 the most endlessly interesting and exciting presidential year within recent memory; he also made the process of his…

1953 CHANCELLOR OF WEST GERMANY Konrad Adenauer West Germany was on the rebound less than a decade after WWII ended, and it was largely due to the efforts of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. His policies led to West German democracy, stability, and economic prosperity. He gained widespread support and was reelected in 1953; nearly all the communists and Nazis who lingered in the country’s leadership were ousted. On the foreign policy front, Adenauer knew if West Germany played Russia against the West, the communists might take over, but playing neutral could risk an eternal divide between West Germany and East Germany. Instead, he worked to gain the respect of Western powers—a tall order considering the destruction Germany had caused in the war. Although there were still political issues needing attention…

1944 | 1959 SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER IN EUROPE & 34TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES Dwight D. Eisenhower General Dwight D. Eisenhower was the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day. It was he who led the land, air, and sea forces onto the beaches of Normandy with the intent to squelch the Germans once and for all. The invasion was a huge risk, for sure, but Allied leaders had the greatest of confidence in Eisenhower. Many thought that the Allied victory would come by the summer’s end, so when the battles raged on through the close of 1944, some questioned whether the struggle was all for naught. Not Eisenhower, at least on the surface. In January 1945, TIME observed, “Even in times…

1935 EMPEROR OF ETHIOPIA Haile Selassie Frail and Prone to bouts of illness, Haile Selassie was not an archetypal pillar of strength, but he fought European colonialism and fascism on behalf of Ethiopia with everything he had. When Italian forces invaded his homeland in 1935, the developing nation didn’t really stand a chance, but that didn’t mean the emperor had to take it lying down. Selassie acted more like a businessman than a military general: He secured some support and was willing to make concessions in exchange for peace and to preserve his country’s identity, which, TIME editors agreed, made him worthy of Person of the Year. Mighty Mussolini and the Italians were going to have their way, though; Selassie was ultimately deposed in 1936. He would return to…

1929 CHAIRMAN OF THE SECOND REPARATIONS CONFERENCE Owen D. Young In 1924, Owen D. Young served on the committee of international finance experts that penned the Dawes Plan, which outlined, among other things, a staggered payment arrangement for Germany’s reparations for actions in WWI. A few years later, however, it became clear that German leaders were not willing to stick to the terms of the plan. The Allied Reparations Committee appointed a new crew to convene in Paris in early 1929, and selected Young as its chair. Young was a reluctant participant, but as an appointee of President Herbert Hoover, he did his civic duty. On paper, he was undoubtedly qualified: At the time of his appointment, he was chairman of the board of General Electric and the Radio…

2018 BRAVE TRUTH-TELLERS The Guardians In a TIME when misinformation ran rampant and the U.S. president steadily attacked the press withclaims of “fake news,” TIME put the spotlight on courageous journalists around the world who faced persecution, arrest, or murder for their reporting. TIME published four covers highlighting these truth-tellers: Jamal Khashoggi, Washington Post columnist, who was murdered for his criticism of the Saudi crown prince. Maria Ressa, editor of the Philippines news website Rappler, who was indicted for her critical coverage of Rodrigo Duterte’s violent policies. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, Reuters journalists, who were captured in Myanmar while investigating the Inn Din massacre. The staff of The Capital Gazette, a Maryland newspaper whose office was targeted by a gunman who killed five of its employees in…

2011 HISTORY CHANGERS The Protester In its 2011 Person of the Year story, TIME noted: “America’s great 21st century contribution to fomenting freedom abroad was not imposing it militarily but enabling it technologically, as an epiphenomenon of globalization. And for a second act, globalization returned the favor, turning democratic uprisings in developing countries into inspirational exports for the rich world.” After years of economic decline, human rights violations, political corruption, unemployment, and poverty, young people worldwide banded together to say enough was enough. The relatively new connectedness social media provided helped grassroots groups to collectively organize more effectively than ever before. In December 2010, a street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire on a street in Tunisia in a fight against autocracy, and sparked the mass protests…

2002 RIGHTERS OF WRONGS The Whistleblowers In 2002, three ordinary women put their careers and livelihoods on the line and bravely exposed dark truths. For this, they were recognized as TIME’s Persons of the Year. None of them wanted to be in the media spotlight; their first on-the-record media interview was for TIME’s December 30, 2002, Person of the Year cover article. In the summer of 2001, Sherron Watkins was a VP at Enron Corp. when she wrote a letter to chairman Kenneth Lay warning him that the company’s accounting methods were improper. In January 2002, a congressional subcommittee investigating Enron’s collapse released the letter and put Watkins in the headlines. Coleen Rowley was a Minneapolis-based FBI agent who wrote a memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller shortly after…

1960 EXPLORERS OF THE FUTURE U.S. Scientists In January 1961, TIME named 15 U.S. scientists as Person of the Year, because “the heart of scientific inquiry now beats strongest in this country. They are representative of all science—with its dependence on the past, its strivings and frustrations in the present, and its plans, hopes and, perhaps, fantasies for the future.” These are the scientists: George Beadle, pioneer of genetics Charles “Doc” Draper, inventor of spacecraft inertial navigation systems John Enders, pioneer of polio and measles vaccines Donald A. Glaser, inventor of the bubble chamber Joshua Lederberg, discoverer of bacterial conjugation Willard Libby, contributor to radiocarbon dating Linus Pauling, pioneer of quantum chemistry and molecular biology Edward Purcell, co-discoverer of nuclear magnetic resonance Isidor Rabi, co-discoverer of nuclear magnetic resonance…

1937 PRESIDENT & FIRST LADY OF CHINA Gen. & Mme. Chiang Kai-shek When TIME named its first husband-and-wife couple of the year, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and Soong Mei-ling, China was in the early stages of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the largest Asian war in the 20th century. China fought the invading Japanese imperialists with aid from Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In the years leading up to the war, known as the Nanjing Decade, the couple worked to build China’s national consciousness, modernize its systems, reform its banking systems, improve its infrastructure, and eliminate corruption and Communism. These efforts caught the eyes of Western leaders. When Chiang was kidnapped in 1936, the couple’s efforts to unify fragmented China seemed to have worked:…