From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Person of the Year is an annual issue of United States (U.S.) newsmagazine Time that features a profile on the 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."^[1]

The tradition of selecting a Man of the Year began in 1927, when Time editors contemplated what they could write about during a slow news week. Primarily, they sought to remedy an editorial embarrassment from earlier that year when the magazine did not put aviator Charles Lindbergh on its cover following his historic trans-Atlantic flight.^[2] At the end of the year, they came up with the idea of a cover story about Lindbergh being the "Man of the Year."

Since then, a person, group of people (either a team of select individuals or a demographic category), or in two special cases, an invention and the planet Earth, has been selected for a special issue at the end of every year. In 1999, the title was changed to Person of the Year in an effort to avoid sexism; however, the only women to win the renamed award so far were those in 2002 who were recognized as "The Whistleblowers" and, jointly with Bill Gates and Bono, Melinda Gates in 2005. Four women were awarded the title when it was still Man of the Year: Corazon Aquino in 1986, Queen Elizabeth II in 1952, Soong Mei-ling (Madame Chiang Kai-Shek) in 1937 and Wallis Simpson in 1936. Nevertheless, 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 1974, "The American Soldier" in 2003, and "You" in 2006.

Since 1927, 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 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.^[3]

The title is often regarded as being an honor, despite the magazine's frequent statements to the contrary.^[4] Some speak of the position of "Person of the Year" as being a reward or prize, on the grounds that many admirable people have been given the title, and others such as Osama bin Laden have been ignored. Thus, journalists will frequently describe a new person of the year as having "joined the ranks" of past "winners" such as Martin Luther King. Yet people such as Adolf Hitler (in 1938) and Joseph Stalin (in 1939 and 1942) have also been granted the title.

There was a massive public backlash in the United States after Time named Ayatollah Khomeini as Man of the Year in 1979.^[5] Since then, Time has generally shied away from choosing anti-American figures. Time's Person of the Year 2001 — immediately following the September 11, 2001 attacks — was New York 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 which declared Giuliani as Person of the Year included an article that mentioned Time's earlier decision to make Ayatollah Khomeini as Man of the Year in 1979 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 for Person of the Year and Hitler was a stronger candidate than Albert Einstein for Person of the Century, but they were not ultimately selected due to what the magazine described as their "negative" influence on history. There was also some controversy during the 1998 poll, when wrestler Mick Foley dominated the vote, receiving over 50% of the vote, before his name was removed.

Another criticised 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 and MySpace). The Daily Show's Jon Stewart referred to the selection as "a joke", and Slate labeled the selection as "just stupid." However, several other selections have contained large groups, if more discriminate. Stephen Colbert joked that when he received his copy of Time in the mail, he thought Time had picked him as the Man of the Year and sent him a personalized copy just for him.

The online poll for the 2006 person of the year results are as follows: Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez got a 35%. Second was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at 21%. Then came Nancy Pelosi at 12%, The YouTube Guys 11%, George W. Bush 8%, Al Gore 8%, Condoleezza Rice 5% and Kim Jong-il 2%^[6].

Year	Choice	Lifetime	Notes
1927	Charles Lindbergh	1902 – 1974	First and youngest person chosen
1928	Walter Chrysler	1875 – 1940
1929	Owen Young	1874 – 1962
1930	Mahatma Gandhi	1869 – 1948	First non-American person chosen
1931	Pierre Laval	1883 – 1945
1932	Franklin Delano Roosevelt	1882 – 1945	First president-elect chosen
1933	Hugh Johnson	1882 – 1942
1934	Franklin Delano Roosevelt	1882 – 1945	2nd time chosen
1935	Haile Selassie I	1892 – 1975	First monarch chosen
1936	/ Wallis Simpson	1896 – 1986	First female chosen
1937	Chiang Kai-shek & Soong May-ling		First couple chosen
1938	Adolf Hitler	1889 – 1945	The only issue where chosen individual was not pictured on cover
1939	Joseph Stalin	1878 – 1953
1940	Winston Churchill	1874 – 1965
1941	Franklin Delano Roosevelt	1882 – 1945	3rd time chosen
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 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
1952	Queen Elizabeth II	b. 1926
1953	Konrad Adenauer	1876 – 1967
1954	John 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 Eisenhower	1890 – 1969	2nd time chosen
1960	U.S. Scientists		Represented by Linus Pauling, Isidor Rabi, Edward Teller, Joshua Lederberg, Donald A. Glaser, Willard Libby, Robert Woodward, Charles Draper, William Shockley, Emilio Segrè, John Enders, Charles Townes, George Beadle, James Van Allen and Edward Purcell
1961	John F. Kennedy	1917 – 1963
1962	Pope John XXIII	1881 – 1963	First Pope chosen
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		Abstract choice
1967	Lyndon B. Johnson	1908 – 1973	2nd time chosen
1968	The Apollo 8 astronauts		Represented by Frank Borman, Jim Lovell & William Anders
1969	The Middle Americans		Abstract choice
1970	Willy Brandt	1913 – 1992
1971	Richard Nixon	1913 – 1994
1972	Richard Nixon	1913 – 1994	2nd time chosen
	Henry Kissinger	b. 1923
1973	John Sirica	1904 – 1992
1974	King Faisal	1906 – 1975
1975	American women	1776 – 1974	Represented by Betty Ford, Carla Hills, Ella Grasso, Barbara Jordan, Susie Sharp, Jill Conway, Billie Jean King, Susan Brownmiller, Addie Wyatt, Kathleen Byerly, Carol Sutton and Alison Cheek
1976	Jimmy Carter	b. 1924
1977	Anwar Sadat	1918 – 1981
1978	Deng Xiaoping	1904 – 1997
1979	Ayatollah Khomeini	1902 – 1989	Leader of the Islamic Revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran.
1980	Ronald Reagan	1911 – 2004
1981	Lech Wałęsa	b. 1943	Leader of the "Solidarity" movement in Poland.
1982	The Computer		"Machine of the Year"; first non-human abstract chosen
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
1986	Corazon Aquino	b. 1933
1987	Mikhail Gorbachev	b. 1931
1988	Endangered Earth		"Planet of the Year"; 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 for his quote "Read my lips: no new taxes.")[7]
1991	Ted Turner	b. 1938
1992	Bill Clinton	b. 1946
1993	The Peacemakers		Represented by Nelson Mandela, F.W. de Klerk, Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin
1994	Pope John Paul II	1920 – 2005	2nd Pope chosen
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 relative of a former winner chosen
2001	Rudolph Giuliani	b. 1956
2002	The Whistleblowers		Represented by Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom, Sherron Watkins of Enron, and Coleen Rowley of the FBI
2003	The American Soldier		2nd time chosen; abstract choice
2004	George W. Bush	b. 1946	2nd time chosen
2005	The Good Samaritans		Represented by Bono and Bill & Melinda Gates
2006	You		"You" control the Information Age

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

• Yearly Time covers
• Person of the Year stories