1/37President-elect Donald Trump has been named the TIME Magazine Person of the Year for 2024, the second time he’s won the prestigious award. Photo by Platon for TIME / TIME / TIME Person of the Year / AFP
Nightmarish image that changed history
A controversial magazine cover from the 1930s was just the beginning of what has become one of the most hotly debated titles in the world.
2/37President-elect Donald Trump speaks during the announcement of his latest honour. Photo: AP Photo/Alex Brandon
3/37President Trump previously won in 2016, when he first won the US presidency. Photo: AFP PHOTO / TIME Inc. / Nadav KANDER
4/37Mr Trump takes over from Taylor Swift, who won the crown for her record breaking Eras Tour which finally finished after 149 shows in December 2024. Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP
5/37Taylor Swift, 2023 TIME Person of the Year. Photo by Handout / TIME / TIME Person of the Year / AFP
6/37Adolf Hitler was TIME’s 1938 Person of the Year. But Newsweek reported Hitler was recognised as “the greatest threatening force that the democratic, freedom-loving world faces today.”
7/37“Most other world figures of 1938 faded in importance as the year drew to a close,” the article read. “But the figure of Adolf Hitler (far right) strode over a cringing Europe with all the swagger of a conqueror.” The article added at the time that Hitler had “brought 10,500,000 more people (7,000,000 Austrians, 3,500,000 Sudetens) under his absolute rule.”
8/37TIME Magazine used surrealist artist Rudolph von Ripper's picture captioned "From the unholy organist, a hymn of hate" from Ecrasez l'infame on the front cover of the issue that announced Hitler as the 1938 Man of the Year. TIME Magazine wrote: "TIME'S cover, showing Organist Adolf Hitler playing his hymn of hate in a desecrated cathedral while victims dangle on a St. Catherine's wheel and the Nazi hierarchy looks on, was drawn by Baron Rudolph Charles von Ripper, a Catholic who found Germany intolerable." Photo: TIME Magazine
9/37Cover of ‘Time’ magazine for 1938. Time named Adolf Hitler as their ‘Person of the Year’ for 1938. Picture: TIME Magazine
10/37Joseph Stalin won the TIME Person of the Year twice, in 1939 and 1942.
11/37Cover of ‘Time’ magazine for 1939. Time named Joseph Stalin as their ‘Person of the Year’ for 1939. Picture: TIME Magazine
12/37The TIME Person of the Year has continued to be controversial in the 21st century with Russian president Vladimir Putin was given the title in 2007.
13/37Putin has been in power since 1999 and during his fourth presidential term, he launched a full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which still continues today. Photo: TIME Magazine
14/37The Magazine also awarded Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in 2022. Photo by Sergei SUPINSKY / AFP
15/37The award was also dedicated to The Spirit of Ukraine representing “resilience of the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian resistance, as well as foreign aid to Ukraine”. Photo: AFP PHOTO / Neil Jamieson/ TIME / TIME Person of the Year
16/37Right from the beginning there have been some bold choices. Wallis Simpson, whose relationship with King Edward VIII saw the King abdicate the throne in order to marry her. She was Person of the Year in 1936. Photo by Cecil Beaton
17/37Cover of TIME magazine for 1936. TIME named Wallis Simpson as their ‘Person of the Year’ for 1936. Picture: TIME Magazine
18/37US Presidents have won Time Person of the Year 24 times, with 14 separate leaders. This includes Richard Nixon, who won in 1971 and 1972. He resigned in 1974 after the Watergate Scandal.
19/37Nixon’s controverisal National Security advisor Henry Kissinger was also selected alongside his president in 1972 after travelling with the president to China in 1972 to negotiate peace in the Vietnam War. Nixon was the first president to travel to China. While he’s largely believed to have been an effective secretary of state, Kissinger was also accused of war crimes because of the civilian death toll of policies he pursued. Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP
20/37Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping twice won the TIME Person of the Year title in 1978 and 1985. While under his reforms, China’s GDP has risen tenfold, he was also blamed for the military crackdown that ledt to the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. Photo: AFP PHOTO / JOHN GIANNINI / FILES
21/37Other winners have not aged so well, such as former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani was ordered to pay $148m to two Georgia election workers who sued him for defamation after he falsely accused them of committing election fraud in the 2020 election. Photo by Adam GRAY / AFP
22/37Giuliani was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year “for having more faith in us than we had in ourselves, for being brave when required and rude where appropriate and tender without being trite, for not sleeping and not quitting and not shrinking from the pain all around him” in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Photo: Gregory Heisler/AP Photo/TIME, Inc.
23/37Despite the “Person of the Year” title, TIME has also regconised groups. In 2003, the Person of the Year was The American soldier, who bears the duty of ``living with and dying for a country’s most fateful decisions,’’ Photo: JAMES NACHTWEY FOR TIME
24/37In 2017, TIME Magazine recognised “The Silence Breakers” who revealed the pervasiveness of sexual harassment and assault across various industries that triggered a national reckoning including Ashley Judd, Susan Fowler, Adama Iwu and Taylor Swift. Photo: AFP PHOTO / TIME Inc. / Billy & Hells
25/37The 2011 Person of the Year was “The Protester”, including those during the Arab Spring, with TIME claiming dissent across the Middle East reshaped global politics. Photo: AP Photo/Time Magazine
26/37In 2006, You won the “Person of the Year”. This recognised anyone using or creating content on the World Wide Web as their 2006 winner. Photo: AP Photo/Time, Inc.
27/37In 2018, the Time magazine "Person of the Year" was given to "The Guardians", split between journalists who faced persecution, arrest or murder for their reporting. This cover shows the staff of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, including five members killed in mass shooting in their newsroom and Philippine journalist Maria Ressa. Photo by Moises SAMAN / TIME Inc. / AFP
28/37In 2018, the Time magazine "Person of the Year" was given to "The Guardians", split between journalists who faced persecution, arrest or murder for their reporting. This cover shows Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered at his country's Istanbul consulate and Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who were imprisoned in Myanmar. They were freed in 2019. Photo by Moises SAMAN / TIME Inc. / AFP
29/37In 2019, then teenager Greta Thunberg, the Swede who became the voice of conscience for a generation facing the climate change emergency was announced as the Person of the Year. Photo by Evgenia ARBUGAEVA / TIME / AFP
30/37Today Greta Thunberg continues to be an environmental activist. Here she is arriving at Westminster Magistrates Court on February 01, 2024 after she was arrested near the InterContinental Hotel in Mayfair on October 17, 2023, whilst protesting against the Energy Intelligence Forum taking place inside. Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images
31/37In 2021, Time Magazine announced Elon Musk would be their Person of the Year. Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP
32/37Tesla chief and SpaceX entrepreneur Elon Musk was named for his embodiment of the technological shifts but also troubling trends reshaping people’s lives. In 2022, he then bought Twitter, renaming it X. Photo by Mark Mahaney / TIME / TIME Person of the Year / AFP
33/37TIME magazine named Angela Merkel 2015 Person of the Year. Photo: TIME Magazine
34/37Merkel was recognised for her leadership during the Greek debt crisis and European migrant crisis but also faced plenty of questions over her immigration policies after more than 1.1m asylum seekers entered the country in 2015-16. Photo by Michele Tantussi/Getty Images
35/37Both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the Person of the Year after winning the 2020 election. Photo by JIM WATSON / AFP
36/37Charles A. Lindbergh in 1927 in New York prior to becoming first person to make the trans-Atlantic non-stop crossing in monoplane “The Spirit of St Louis”. Photo: United Press Photo
37/37Charles Lindbergh was the first TIME magazine Person of the Year in 1927.