A hilarious journey through Time Magazine’s “People Of The Year” covers.
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Time Magazine has a nice archive of all its Person Of The Year covers. 1
And it got me thinking…
…I love me a good sportscast or election liveblog as much as the next schmo, so why not liveblog my efforts going through these Person Of The Year thumbnails to see if I can identify who’s on the cover.
Is this a pointless endeavour? Probably. Entertaining? maybe yes.
Either way, come hither for part one of the journey (1927-1958).
Based on popular feedback (and my rigorous pilates schedule), I’ll do part two (1959-1987) and part three (1988-2017) sometime in the future.
1. 1927-1937: Unknown White Guys In Suits
🚨🚨TRIGGER WARNING🚨🚨
If the son of Fred Trump (and grandson of Frederick Trump) offends you, don’t look to the right.
🚨🚨TRIGGER WARNING🚨🚨
This was the Time Person Of The Year in 2016.
He’ll (gasp!) probably be Time Person Of The Year again in 2018. He’s white. He’s male. He’s wearing a suit. And he’s President of the United States.
The only prediction I’m going to make as I roll through these Time Person Of The Year covers, is that there will be quite a few individuals that fit this profile.
The 20th century was – after all – “America’s Century”. 2
To get things going, I’ll screenshot ten covers at a time from the archive page. Give my initial guesses on the winner for each year based on the thumbnail. Then blog away as I inevitably discover that my guesses are really wrong.
Commence liveblog.
1927 – 1929: I enjoy reading the occasional history book so am quite perturbed that I can’t peg these first three guys.
Using the “white male US President in a suit” shortcut (hereinafter referred to as “the shortcut”), President Calvin Coolidge or President Herbert Hoover is probably one of them.
Fudge. Nope.
According to this super useful Wikipedia page, 3 the first three guys are Charles Lindbergh (first person to fly solo over the Atlantic; not bad), William Chrysler (oversaw merger of Chrysler with GM and started work on the creatively named Chrysler Building, which would be the tallest building in the world for 11 months before the Empire State Building ate its lunch; still, that’s a pretty solid year) and Owen D. Young (Chair of the Young Plan Committee to settle German WWI reparation payments; this didn’t work out too well).
1930: This one was super easy. That’s definitely Gandhi. No suit. Not white. He wouldn’t lead India to independence until 1947 but winning a post-WWII Person Of The Year title will probably be too tall a task as the competition will be stiff AF, like the 1994 Oscar’s Best Picture battle. 4 So it’s good he notched this win for leading a 240-mile march (“salt satyagraha”) as protest against British taxes. 5
1931: First thought was Stalin. The picture (left) definitely looks like Stalin. If it’s not Stalin, maybe Hitler? It’s a little early to be giving them the Person Of The Year title but the mustache is messing with me. Ah – jeez – neither! It’s Pierre Laval (?), the first elected Prime Minister of France (of course!). My only other thought is I have no idea how moustaches survived after the 1930s and 1940s.
1932-1934: Finally! A familiar face. The shortcut works. It’s white male US President in a suit Franklin Delano Roosevelt (aka FDR) in 1932 and 1934. Getting props for efforts to pull America out of the Great Depression no doubt.
Who’s this chap from 1933? Definitely can’t use the shortcut on him.6 It’s Hugh Johnson, who is working as FDR’s director of the National Recovery Administration. So there’s that
1935: Looks like a decorated military man of sorts. Maybe Franco? But the Spanish Civil War starts next year. Sure enough, I’m wrong. It’s Haile Sellasie (?), Emperor of Ethiopia who had to deal with an invasion from (opposite day) perennial winner Benito Mussolini. 
1936: The Time’s archive page seems to have skipped the 1936 winner (right). And it’s a woman…the first one! Come on Time Magazine! It’s 2018! How you gonna snub the first Woman Of The Year in your archives. Wallis Simpson is her name. And dating British King Edward VIII until he abdicates his throne and marries her is the game.
1937: An Asian couple? In the late 1930s? Has to be Chiang Kai-shek and Madame Chiang Kai-shek! Bingo! The “Man & Wife Of The Year” were recognized for leading China at the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War. A few things I vaguely remember from Barbara Tuchman’s classic Stillwell & The American Experience In China: 1911-1945:
- Chiang Kai-shek was derisively called “Peanut” (hahaa) by “Vinegar” Joe Stillwell – US General in charge of the China-Burma-India theatre during WWII – because (and don’t quote me) Kai-shek’s head looks like a peanut (hahaha) or he’s hard-headed like a peanut (less haha but still hahaha). Either way, this really pissed off Chiang Kai-shek.
- With no shortage of nicknames, Chiang Kai-shek was also (more reputably) dubbed “Generalissimo” by the US press. I initially thought “Generalissimo” was a typo but apparently, it’s the highest military rank possible (higher than 5-star general or field marshal). It’s also a pretty incredible rap name that seems to still be available.
- Madame Chiang Kai-shek (aka “China’s Eternal First Lady”) graduated from Wellesley College in Massachussets with a degree in English Lit and is kind of like a Game Of Thrones character for her politicking over the years.
2. 1938-1948: Three Words, Three Syllables: World War II
Before we get started here, I had to double check how many syllables “World” is. Apparently it’s one. I’m skeptical. Sounds like two.
“World: One syllable or two syllables?” I have a feeling this was the original “What Color Is This Dress” meme.
On to the magazine covers.
1938: While not clear from the thumbnail, I’m guessing that the 1938 cover is Hitler because 1) I didn’t see him anywhere else in this section of the archives and 2) it’s well known that Hitler was once named Time Man Of The Year.
On the latter point, the reason it’s well known that Hitler was once named Time Man Of The Year is because some people can never stop parroting this fact when they want to disparage other “winners” who they don’t like: “Oh, [INSERT NAME] won Time Person Of The Year? Well – so did Hitler, so that’s not really impressive to me.”
Also, per this meme below that has made its way around the internet, people like to use the fact that Time made Hitler “Man Of The Year” as evidence that the mainstream media is #fakenews.
Here is the point that Time Magazine has to keep reminding people about its selection process:
“TIME’s choices for Person of the Year are often controversial. Editors are asked to choose the person or thing that had the greatest impact on the news, for good or ill — guidelines that leave them no choice but to select a newsworthy — not necessarily praiseworthy — cover subject.”
Keep this in mind as we get through the rest of these covers…
1939: …Stalin.
1940: Not Again! Time seems to have left out the 1940 winner in its archive page. And its another British person. 7 This person is slightly less obscure than Wallis Simpson, though. And it’s not a woman. It’s a man. Maybe the greatest man’s man ever. 8 The British Bulldog. Sir Winston Churchill.
What was he chosen for? I’m going to go out on a limb and say this:
C’mon Time. You’re better than that. Get this man back in the archives.
1941: FDR takes America into WWII after Pearl Harbour. Here’s a fun (and pretty embarrassing) fact for Time Magazine. Before that “day which will live in infamy” (December 7th, 1941), Time had other plans for its 1941 winner: 
“Such was the popularity of Dumbo…that Time magazine made plans to revisit the film and its hero in a year-end essay, and an unheard-of honor: Time would recognize little Dumbo in its December 29, 1941 issue with a cover portrait, touting him as “Mammal of the Year”…Plans for Dumbo’s cover debut moved ahead, but then in the early morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, naval and air forces of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and sent the United States hurtling into World War II. Priorities immediately changed, the news completely shifted focus, and suddenly the sweet idea of the lovable little elephant that had captured the hearts of moviegoers seemed to trivialize the cover of the nation’s most reliable newsmagazine.”
“Priorities immediately changed”? You don’t say.
Real talk. How do you go from Hitler to Stalin to Dumbo? Is this the greatest “which one of these things is not like the others” ever? 9
1942: Stalin redux. Let me channel my inner “outraged at the mainstream media” anger and create a hard-hitting meme.
1943-1948: The shortcut gets a cleansweep here if you generalize from “white male US presidents in suits” to “white male US citizens in suits”. In rapid fire mode: General George Marshall (US Army Chief Of Staff), General Supreme Allied Commander Ike Eisenhower (D-Day and Operation Overlord), President Harry Truman (becomes POTUS after FDR’s passing + atom bomb), US Secretary Of State James F. Byrnes (helps with post-War negotiations; seems pretty meh looking back), 10 newly-appointed Secretary of State George C. Marshall (Marshall Plan) and President “Give Em Hell Harry” Truman again (after a major upset election victory).
3. 1949-1958: No White Male US Presidents In Suits!
1949: Time totally vindicates itself for not having Churchill’s 1940 Man Of The Year cover in its archive page by making Churchill MAN OF THE HALF-CENTURY! This may not have the same ring as “Man Of The Century” but, whatever.
1950: That looks like a grunt. No suit to be found. Probably a soldier during the most important war of the time (Korean War). Sure enough, Time dubs its 1950 Person Of The Year winner “The American Fighting Man”.
1951-1956: Not going to lie, my brain is kind of fried right now. Striking out with these covers.
- Face don’t ring a bell. Per Wikipedia, it’s Mohammad Mossadegh, Iranian PM who booted Westerners out of Iranian oil fields. 11
- Def Queen Elizabeth, who ascended to the throne after the death of King George VI. 12
- Probably Willy Brandt because of the German flag. Ah! I’m an idiot, its Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, re-elected to lead West Germany during trying times. (Brandt wasn’t Chancellor until the 1970s. I was probably swayed as I remember Brandt so vividly for his hair-raising-awe-inspiring-tear-inducing act of German repentance when he went to Poland and kneeled to honour WWII Warsaw Ghetto victims).
- US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (had no idea what he looked like; he was architect of the collective defense Southeast Asia Treaty Organization)
- President of GM Harlow Curtice (had no idea what he looked like OR who he was; GM was the first company to make $1bn in a single year)
- Actually, I might know this one. For 1956, it’s probably Hungarian Anti-Soviet Freedom Fighters. Yep, confirmed.
1957-58: These last two I know just from their absurd facial features – Soviet PM Nikita Khrushchev (consolidated power in the Soviet Union and oversaw Sputnik 1 going into space) and French President Charles De Gaulle (established France’s Fifth Republic, becoming President).
Other than the shortcut (aka “white male US president in a suit”), I guess another good rule-of-thumb for snagging a Time Magazine Person Of The Year cover is to have an extremely caricature-able face.
De Gaulle and Khrushchev definitely fit this bill.
AND that’s all for part one folks.
Brain totally fried.
Stay tuned (and subscribe to One TRUNNA) for part 2 and part 3 of Trolling Through Time, which will come some time maybe in the future.