Person of the Year (formerly Man of the Year) is an annual issue of the United States newsmagazine Time that features and profiles a man, woman, couple, group, idea, place, or machine 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 for 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, groups of people, an invention, and a planet have been selected for the special year end issue. In 1999, the title was changed to Person of the Year in an effort to be more inclusive, and avoid sexist phraseology. However, the only women to win the renamed recognition so far were those recognized as The Whistleblowers (2002) and Melinda Gates (jointly with Bill Gates and Bono in 2005). Four women were granted the title when it was still Man 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 — and all four were designated Woman of the Year. Women would also be included in several groups, 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, and You in 2006.

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, Herbert Hoover (the presidents who were in office at the time of the first issue and the term immediately following it, respectively) and Gerald Ford.

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 3 times - in 1932, 1934 and 1941.

Controversy

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.

In 1998, professional wrestler Mick Foley led the online poll to be voted Time Man of the Year; however, he was removed as a candidate after Time felt he had not done enough to deserve the accolade. Furthermore, the magazine has often attracted criticism for being too biased towards American personalities in its choice of Person of the Year.

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 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.

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 blogs, YouTube, MySpace and Wikipedia).

Persons of the Year

Year	Choice	Lifetime	Notes
1927	Charles Lindbergh	1902–1974	First and youngest single person chosen
1928	Walter Chrysler	1875–1940
1929	Owen D. Young	1874–1962
1930	Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi	1869–1948	First non-American person chosen. First Asian chosen.
1931	Pierre Laval	1883–1945	First European chosen
1932	Franklin D. Roosevelt	1882–1945
1933	Hugh Samuel Johnson	1882–1942
1934	Franklin D. Roosevelt	1882–1945	First person to be chosen twice
1935	Haile Selassie I	1892–1975	First African chosen
1936	Wallis Simpson	1896–1986	First woman chosen
1937	Chiang Kai-shek Soong May-ling	1887–1975 1897–2003
1938	Adolf Hitler	1889–1945
1939	Joseph Stalin	1878–1953
1940	Winston Churchill	1874–1965
1941	Franklin D. Roosevelt	1882–1945	First and so far only person to be chosen three times
1942	Joseph Stalin	1878–1953	2nd time chosen
1943	George Marshall	1880–1959
1944	Dwight D. Eisenhower	1890–1969
1945	Harry S. Truman	1884–1972
1946	James F. Byrnes	1879–1972
1947	George Marshall	1880–1959	2nd time chosen
1948	Harry S. Truman	1884–1972	2nd time chosen
1949	Winston Churchill	1874–1965	Man of the Half-Century; 2nd time chosen
1950	The American Fighting-Man		Representing Korean War troops; first abstract chosen
1951	Mohammed Mossadegh	1882–1967	First Middle Eastern
1952	Queen Elizabeth II	b. 1926
1953	Konrad Adenauer	1876–1967
1954	John Foster Dulles	1888–1959
1955	Harlow Curtice	1893–1962
1956	Hungarian Freedom Fighter		Abstract choice
1957	Nikita Khrushchev	1894–1971
1958	Charles de Gaulle	1890–1970
1959	Dwight D. Eisenhower	1890–1969	2nd time chosen
1960	US Scientists		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	1917–1963
1962	Pope John XXIII	1881–1963
1963	Martin Luther King, Jr.	1929–1968
1964	Lyndon B. Johnson	1908–1973
1965	William Westmoreland	1914–2005
1966	The Generation Twenty-Five and Under (Baby Boomers)		Abstract choice
1967	Lyndon B. Johnson	1908–1973	2nd time chosen
1968	The Apollo 8 astronauts		William Anders, Frank Borman, and Jim Lovell
1969	The Middle Americans		Abstract choice
1970	Willy Brandt	1913–1992
1971	Richard Nixon	1913–1994
1972	Richard Nixon	1913–1994	2nd time chosen; Only person to be chosen for two years consecutively
	Henry Kissinger	b. 1923
1973	John Sirica	1904–1992
1974	King Faisal	1906–1975
1975	American Women		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	b. 1924
1977	Anwar Sadat	1918–1981
1978	Deng Xiaoping	1904–1997
1979	Ayatollah Khomeini	1902–1989
1980	Ronald Reagan	1911–2004
1981	Lech Wałęsa	b. 1943
1982	The Computer		Machine of the Year; first non-human chosen; abstract choice
1983	Ronald Reagan	1911–2004	2nd time chosen
	Yuri Andropov	1914–1984
1984	Peter Ueberroth	b. 1937
1985	Deng Xiaoping	1904–1997	2nd time chosen; Oldest person chosen (aged 81)
1986	Corazon C. Aquino	1933–2009
1987	Mikhail Gorbachev	b. 1931
1988	The Endangered Earth		Planet of the Year; 2nd non-human chosen; abstract choice
1989	Mikhail Gorbachev	b. 1931	Man of the Decade; 2nd time chosen
1990	George H. W. Bush	b. 1924	Bush was referred to as The Two George Bushes — this is not a reference to George W. Bush but to how George H.W. Bush was complimented for international affairs and criticized for domestic affairs, including his quote, "Read my lips: no new taxes."
1991	Ted Turner	b. 1938
1992	Bill Clinton	b. 1946
1993	The Peacemakers		Represented by Yasser Arafat, F.W. de Klerk, Nelson Mandela, and Yitzhak Rabin
1994	Pope John Paul II	1920–2005
1995	Newt Gingrich	b. 1943
1996	David Ho	b. 1952
1997	Andy Grove	b. 1936
1998	Bill Clinton	b. 1946	2nd time chosen
	Kenneth Starr	b. 1946
1999	Jeffrey P. Bezos	b. 1964
2000	George W. Bush	b. 1946	First winner to be a relative of a former winner
2001	Rudolph Giuliani	b. 1944
2002	The Whistleblowers		Represented by Cynthia Cooper, WorldCom; Coleen Rowley, FBI; and Sherron Watkins, Enron
2003	The American Soldier		Abstract choice; 2nd time chosen
2004	George W. Bush	b. 1946	2nd time chosen
2005	The Good Samaritan		Represented by Bono, Bill Gates, and Melinda Gates
2006	You		Abstract choice; represents the individual content creator on the World Wide Web
2007	Vladimir Putin	b. 1952	First Russian chosen since the fall of the Soviet Union
2008	Barack Obama	b. 1961

1. Time (2002) p. 1.
2. First Person of the Year is Jeff Bezos of amazon.com.
3. Time (2002) pp. 2, 79.
4. Time (2002) p. 79.
5. http://www.time.com/time/personoftheyear/2006/walkup/
6. Time (2002) p. 95.

See also

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

References

External links