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Person of the Year - TIME
The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20150713104526/http://time.com/topic/person-of-the-year/
TIME U.S. LGBT

Inside the Love Story That Changed the Gay Marriage Battle

Edith Windsor reflects on her life with late spouse, Thea Spyer, and the meaning of gay marriage

Friday’s Supreme Court decision making gay marriage a legal right in the U.S. is the culmination of work by many activists in the gay and lesbian community.

One of those unlikely activists is Edith Windsor, a feisty and loving former computer programmer who lived an ordinary and happy life, but whose legal battle for spousal rights led to the first high-court victory for gay marriage in 2013.

“I’m thrilled. I’m absolutely thrilled,” she said of the decision. “It’s not an end in itself, but it does give us an enormous amount of joy, and pleasure, and possibility. It’s another step on the way to total equality.”

Even in her joy, she spoke passionately about the many gay people who still suffer as a result of inequality: “Every gay person is not feeling that joy today. There are kids in the streets and people who are hungry and isolated, and hopefully we go next for total equality.”

After Windsor’s spouse Thea Spyer died in 2009, leaving Windsor her entire estate, Windsor fought for the spousal exemption to the estate tax that gay couples were denied under the Defense of Marriage Act. After hearing Windsor’s case, on June 26, 2013, the Supreme Court found DOMA unconstitutional, thus ending the federal ban on gay marriage.

That decision was a huge win in itself, but it also paved the way for today’s victory for the LGBT movement. Partly due to the Supreme Court ruling in the Windsor case, several more states have since changed their marriage laws. Thirty-six states, home to more than 70% of Americans, now allow gay marriage.

In 2013, Windsor was one of TIME’s Persons of the Year. As part of that project, TIME’s deputy photo editor Paul Moakley created this lovely video of Windsor talking about photographs she and Spyer had taken over 40 years together. Their marriage in 2007 would ultimately change history, but their relationship is also an inspiring love story for any married couple.

“I think about Thea all the time. I think she would be thrilled with this,” Windsor told TIME after hearing Friday’s decision. “I never thought it could happen. I think it is glorious that it could happen. I think the wording of the decision is glorious. It really is the beginning of the ending of stigma. It is the beginning of teenagers who fall in love with a person knowing that they can marry — that they have futures. It is the beginning of kids not having to apologize to their families anymore because they can marry just like anybody else.”

Windsor thanked many people for their role in Friday’s court decision. She called Jim Obergefell, the plaintiff in the case, the gay movement’s “next hero.” “I thank Supreme Court for once again proving to me that the Constitution of this country does matter and that justice will prevail.”

TIME Politics person of the year

White House Salutes Ebola Fighters

"The president, could not be prouder of the brave men and women who’ve committed themselves to this effort in a foreign land"

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest congratulated Ebola responders Wednesday for being named TIME’s Person of the Year.

“Health care workers on the front lines of the Ebola fight certainly aren’t in it for the recognition, but today their heroism and selflessness was on display because of TIME magazine’s decision to name them its person of the year,” Earnest said at the top of his daily press briefing. “The Administration, including the President, could not be prouder of the brave men and women who’ve committed themselves to this effort in a foreign land.”

TIME History health

Until 2014, This Man Was TIME’s Only Medical Person of the Year

TIME 1996: Dr. David Ho

For 2014, the Ebola Fighters have been selected. In 1996, the Man of the Year was AIDS researcher Dr. David Ho

“Some ages are defined by their epidemics,” wrote Philip Elmer-De Witt in TIME’s 1996 Man of the Year issue. The 14th century was the time of the bubonic plague. The 16th brought smallpox to the new world. In the early 20th century, influenza rampaged. “Today,” he wrote back then, “we live in the shadow of AIDS–the terrifyingly modern epidemic that travels by jet and zeros in on the body’s own disease-fighting immune system.”

The idea that a virus or bacterium can change the world — and that the men and women who fight them can too — is no less true now than it was then. On Wednesday, TIME announced that the Ebola Fighters have been named the Person of the Year for 2014.

As TIME’s Editor Nancy Gibbs notes, this year’s Ebola outbreak has brought forward heroes while raising the question of how the world can turn their personal sacrifices into new ways to fight the virus, to respond to epidemics and to care for those who need it most.

And though AIDS and Ebola remain two of the most frightening diseases on earth, looking back at 1996’s Man of the Year cover story can bring at least a little hope that those questions stand a chance of being answered. (There were theoretical medical researchers included in the 1960 Men of the Year issue, honoring U.S. scientists, but their work as doctors was not the focus of the story; Dr. Ho is the only Man of the Year prior to 2014 selected specifically for his work with a disease.) At the time, AIDS was a death sentence — but Ho, by successfully lowering the virus count in patients who received a combination of new and powerful drugs when they’d only just been infected, helped change the way the medical community looked at HIV and AIDS.

Nearly two decades later, though an AIDS vaccine is still not a reality, progress has been substantial. AIDS researchers have found their answers to many of the questions Ebola fighters face today. Treatment protocols are well established (if not applied equally all over the world). Survival is no longer miraculous. It’s possible to prevent transmission. And, just this winter, TIME took a look at the state of AIDS in San Francisco and found that, against what would have once seemed impossible odds, the city has the elimination of the disease in its sights.

Dr. Ho continues to direct the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center; in 2010, TIME profiled him again and found that he was still pioneering new ways of treating the disease. That tireless work by Ho and his colleagues is one of the reasons AIDS is no longer a defining disease of our time — and if he demonstrates that devotion and dedication can make a difference, that’s just one more reason to honor the Ebola fighters.

Read the full story about Dr. David Ho, here in the TIME Vault: Man of the Year, Dr. David Ho

TIME History person of the year

Everything You Wanted to Know About TIME’s Person of the Year

TIME’s Deputy Managing Editor Radhika Jones answers your questions about how the choice is made, how editors keep it a secret and why inanimate objects are eligible

TIME1927: Charles Lindbergh

How long has Person of the Year been around?

It has a great origin story—or maybe more of a legend. At the end of 1927, the editors of TIME looked at the year’s covers and realized they had somehow failed to put Charles Lindbergh on the cover. He’d done his historic flight in May, but no cover. They decided they could get away with putting him on the cover months later by calling him “Man of the Year.” It was a stopgap. And here we are 87 years later. The challenge is that on one hand, we’re trying to make a decision about who best represents the news of the year. But the pick also needs to have archival value. You need the sense that it will stand the test of time. So ideally, we want our Person of the Year to be both a snapshot of where the world is and a picture of where it’s going. Someone, or in rare cases, something, that feels like a force of history.

(TIME Unveils Finalists for 2014 Person of the Year)

Tell me about the ‘for better or worse’ caveat that’s often attached to Person of the Year.

The criterion is “the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill, and embodied what was important about the year.” A lot of news is bad news and a lot of people who make bad news are very powerful people. TIME’s editors aren’t immune to that reality. Famously, they named Hitler in 1938 and Stalin in 1939 and again in 1942. These were men who had a huge impact, not just in those years but over the entire century. It’s easy to stand by those choices, looking back. Arguably you could do a bad guy every year and be justified.

Earth isn’t a person and neither is the personal computer. What’s the deal with these inanimate objects?

It’s a good question. What I hear anecdotally is that readers are most satisfied when the Person of the Year is a person. Sometimes it’s been a thing; sometimes it’s been a collective. In 2011, it was The Protester, a sort of representative figure. We thought long and hard about that. Could we execute it in a way that would be satisfying? Would people understand what we were trying to say? We decided that we could, and they would. I think the personal computer really stands up. Although Steve Jobs was profiled for that issue, and you could argue the editors might have been more forward-looking had they named Steve Jobs for that year, 1982.

(These Are the Most Searched Candidates on the Person of the Year Poll)

Is that something you hear a lot? Why wasn’t Steve Jobs ever Person of the Year?

Definitely, particularly the year he died. To me the optimal year would have been 1984, when the first Mac came out. The 1984 Person of the Year was Peter Ueberroth, who ran the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Looking back, it’s easy to judge, but that would have been a good year for Steve.

Has the Person of the Year ever been someone who is deceased?

No. But nowhere is it written that it couldn’t be.

How secretive is the process of putting together the issue?

It’s a really fun journalistic property and I think a lot of fun leaks out of it if people have a sense of who it’s going to be. We have runners-up in the issue, so there are a number of stories in the mix each year, and we have to stay flexible, given the nature of the news. Very few people on the staff know who the front-runner is, or even the short list. Really only the people for whom it’s necessary to know, know — including a small circle of editors and the writer working on the story. Layout meetings are held in secret. This is my fifth year editing it and I’ve developed a good poker face.

Is it true that the announcement is made before the cover goes to the printers?

Yes, this year the announcement will be made on the Today show and to TIME’s 6.5 million Twitter followers on the morning of Dec. 10, as the issue goes to press. It goes live on TIME.com immediately, and our plan is for readers to be able to download the tablet edition on the 10th as well.

Do you feel outside pressure to make a certain choice, especially with social networking and the Internet?

We invite it, because we do this online poll, which is extremely unscientific. Response to the Person of the Year issue tends to be very focused on whom we put on the cover, but the issue is also our take on the entire year in review. The poll is part of our effort to remind ourselves and readers: these were the things that happened this year and these were the people who made them happen or the people to whom they happened. Certain narratives start to present themselves just through that group of names, about business or technology or human rights or culture or politics. What’s nice about the poll is that we get an unregulated sense of who piques the public’s interest. And while we don’t make our selection based on the poll results, it’s always interesting to see where some of our preferred candidates end up.

People always seem surprised to see entertainers like Taylor Swift on the Person of the Year poll list. Can you talk about why pop stars are included?

TIME has always covered news in its broadest sense. Working on Person of the Year, I’ve spent a lot of time in the archives and I learned that for the first four decades of its life, TIME put a person on the cover every week. There were a handful of exceptions (a horse, a flag, the city of Paris), but otherwise every week you’d see person on the cover—that’s part of the magazine’s ongoing legacy. Those people are not always world leaders or presidents of the United States or CEOs. Sometimes they are Julia Child or Woody Allen or Charlie’s Angels. And some of those covers are the most enduring covers of TIME. I do think there are arguments to be made for cultural figures. They don’t impact the news in the same way a dictator would, but they certainly signal something about where the world is at a given time. If people remember 2014 as the year of Beyonce, I wouldn’t say that’s entirely wrong.

Do you have any Person of the Year choices you find inspiring or unusual?

I’ve become partial to You from 2006. It’s a great issue. It gets a lot of flak because of the Mylar cover, but if you go back and read that issue of TIME, it’s a very strong statement about what was happening with user-generated content. I also like the “25 and Under” issue from 1966, partly because it has a great composite illustration on the cover, which is hard to pull off, but also it was a clever move to identify what would later be known as the Baby Boomer generation at that moment.

Any hints for this year?

No.

TIME History person of the year

See Every Person Of The Year Cover Ever

Every year since 1927, TIME has chosen a Person of the Year that influenced the world, for better or worse. From Charles Lindbergh to the Ebola Fighters, see past Persons of the Year.

TIME World person of the year

TIME Unveils Finalists for 2014 Person of the Year

Eight contenders are on the shortlist ahead of Wednesday's announcement

TIME’s editors named eight final candidates for the 2014 Person of the Year on Monday.

TIME managing editor Nancy Gibbs revealed the shortlist on NBC’s Today show. Here are the eight still in the final running, in no particular order:

  • The Ferguson protesters, who took to the streets in August following the fatal shooting of an unarmed black 18-year-old by a white police officer, and again in November when a grand jury declined to indict the officer in the killing.
  • The Ebola caregivers, who are still fighting the biggest Ebola outbreak in history, that has so far taken the lives of nearly 7,000 people in West Africa.
  • Vladimir Putin, the Russian president who has remained in the headlines throughout this year, from his country’s stewardship of the Winter Olympics in Sochi to its annexation of Crimea, and its role in the ongoing civil strife in eastern Ukraine.
  • Taylor Swift, one of the world’s top-selling pop artists, who this year shook up the music industry by pulling her music from streaming service Spotify, which she believes should compensate artists more.
  • Jack Ma, an English teacher turned founder and CEO of Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant which debuted a $25 billion IPO.
  • Tim Cook, who introduced Apple’s iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, Apple Watch, and Apple Pay this year, and whose decision to come out made him the first openly gay Fortune 500 CEO.
  • Masoud Barzani, the acting president of the Iraqi Kurdish Region since 2005, who has deftly threaded the region’s push for independence with the ongoing fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria.
  • Roger Goodell, the National Football League commissioner whose leadership has been under great scrutiny this year as the league dealt with public incidents of domestic abuse by players such as Ray Rice, among other controversies.

MORE: Everything You Wanted to Know About TIME’s Person of the Year

Gibbs will unveil TIME’s Person of the Year on Today on Wednesday morning, when it will also be shared on Twitter and Facebook. Readers have already made their choice, picking Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as their favored candidate in TIME’s online poll.

Read next: Narendra Modi Wins Reader Poll for TIME Person of the Year

TIME History Media

Elvis, Donald Trump and Other Reader Favorites for TIME’s Person of the Year

man in moon for POY
TIME A letter to the editor from the Dec. 14, 1962, issue of TIME

Narendra Modi is the winner of this year's readers' poll. See who else has been selected over the years

As 1933 came to an end, and the seventh annual TIME Man of the Year issue approached, a reader named Charles Cassil Reynard wrote in from Hiram, Ohio, to note that his “snow-bound college town” had placed the following odds on whom the magazine would choose as the next honoree. Odds on Hitler were 6-5; odds on Roosevelt were 3-2. (The actual Person of the Year for 1933? National Recovery Administrator Hugh Samuel Johnson.)

The editor, in the letters section, responded as follows: “What Man-of-the-Year bets are other readers making?—ED.” Thus was born a long tradition that continues to this day, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi being named Monday as the latest winner of the TIME Person of the Year Reader Poll.

Then, as now, the final decision is made by the editors — but that doesn’t mean the poll results aren’t worth reading. Over the years, especially during the pre-Internet years when every candidate was a write-in, the reader poll has yielded some extremely prescient suggestions…and some that are interesting in entirely different ways.

There have been plenty of readers who nailed the nomination, and even the art choices. For example, a reader named Fred Schmidt in 1938 suggested that “it is plain that [the Man of the Year] can’t be anybody else but Hitler” but that “it is just as plain that you will not have the courage and daring to publish his picture on the front page of TIME.” Sure enough, the Jan. 2, 1939, issue proclaimed that Hitler was Man of the Year, illustrated with an allegorical drawing of an “unholy organist” playing a “hymn of hate.”

Readers anticipated the change from “Man of the Year” to “Person of the Year,” with reader Cindy Hermann in 1973 writing in that, “Times have changed. It is time that TIME changed. Instead of Man of the Year, I suggest you use Person of the Year. I nominate Gloria Steinem.” Steinem has never been Person of the Year, but since 1999 that’s been the nomenclature, rather than “man” or “woman.” (The first woman of the year was Wallis Simpson, for 1936; she had been a top reader suggestion from readers for that year.)

Readers were also early to suggest that the Man of the Year didn’t necessarily have to be a single man. Though the first official conceptual choice didn’t arrive till 1950’s Man of the Year (the American G.I.), letters to the editor had earlier suggested The Forgotten Man, The Common Fighting Man, The American Voter and The American Farmer. Other category-wide nominations since then have included “the anonymous scientist, educator, teacher in the U.S., where ‘the American Way of Life’ pays him worse and considers him less than a garbage collector” (for 1957), “the American Negro” (for 1963, with the following note from the nominating reader: “Need I say more?”), the college student (nominated several times), Woodstock Nation (for 1969), and the American Woman (for 1970; the magazine ran with that choice five years later).

Not every reader took the question entirely seriously. Over the years there have been some nominations that are fairly farfetched, surprising or silly. These people — or non-people, as the case often was — may have been influential in a given year, but for one reason or another they didn’t stand a chance. Those nominees have included: Hopalong Cassidy, Richard Nixon’s dog Checkers, Li’l Abner, Elvis, the Man in the Moon, God, Snoopy, Secretariat, Alice Cooper, E.T., David Bowie, David Lee Roth, “Baby Jessica” who was rescued from the well, Dow Jones, Donald Trump and the lady from the “Where’s the beef?” ads.

And one nominee shows up over and over again: “Me.” For nearly as long as the magazine has been asking for suggestions for Person of the Year, readers have been raising their hands. Especially in times of global turmoil, there’s a certain aptness to the idea that living an average life and not harming anyone is the most influential way to create good in the world.

“My car, TV set and refrigerator are all paid for. I have lived with my first and only wife for over 32 years. I therefore, modestly but confidently, nominate myself,” wrote one Lyle Woods Bryan of Warrensburg, Mo., in 1960. A few years later, Deirdre A. McCormick of Tarrytown, N.Y., echoed that sentiment: “I am 19 years old. In 1967, I neither burned draft cards, dropped out of society, demonstrated against the war in Viet Nam, meditated with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, shot acid, popped bennies, smoked bananas, participated in the sexual revolution, grooved in the East Village, married a man thrice my age, grew organic vegetables in Topanga Canyon, nor forced flowers and love on passersby.” Decades later, in 2000, it was Jonathan Michals of Melville, N.Y., who noted that he was “a regular guy who works hard.”

Perhaps the most moving such missive was this one, from 1936:

Sirs:

For Man of the Year I modestly nominate myself. I am neither monarch, dictator, fuhrer, president or even a deposed king. Nor am I a movie star, postmaster, baseball player, maestro or champion corn husker. I am just an average American Business Man.

You may well ask on what I base my claim. The answer is simplicity itself.

From high quarters I am vaguely referred to as one of the “vested interests” though “divested” would more properly fit me.

It is I who am expected to pay the income tax, undivided profits tax, social security tax, the plus tax, the surplus tax and the nonplussed tax. The Robinson-Patman, Wheeler-Rayburn and What-Other- Senators-Have-You bills are all aimed at me.

I must raise a family, satisfy the labor unions, send my wife south for the winter, support the missionaries in Kamchatka and trade in my new car for a newer car each year.

You already have my photo in your files. It is that blurred composite picture showing a man trying to keep his ear to the ground, his eye to the future and his chin up all at the same time. It’s a good trick but who can do it?

SIMON OTTINGER New York City

Ottinger was not himself selected — that was Wallis Simpson’s year — but he and his cohort did eventually get their wish. For 2006, the Person of the Year was, simply, “You.”

This year’s official selection for TIME’s Person of the Year will be announced Wednesday.

TIME World person of the year

Modi Takes Back Lead from Ferguson Protesters in TIME’s Person of the Year Poll

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken back the lead

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has retaken the lead in TIME’s Person of the Year poll, surpassing the protesters for Ferguson, Mo., with just four days left to vote.

The Ferguson protesters temporarily took the lead from Modi last week as people around the United States demonstrated against a grand jury’s decision not to indict the white police officer who shot and killed an unarmed black teenager in August. Modi, who entered office earlier this year, is seen by many in India and around the world as having the potential to reinvigorate the country’s economy.

The voting remains close. Modi has 10.8% of votes while the Ferguson protesters have 10.2%. Hong Kong protest leader Joshua Wong, Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, and the Ebola doctors and nurses round out the top five.

Since 1927, TIME has named a person who, for better or worse, has most influenced the news and our lives in the past year.

The Person of the Year is selected by TIME’s editors, but readers are asked to weigh in by commenting on any TIME Facebook post that includes #TIMEPOY, tweeting votes using the #TIMEPOY hashtag, or by heading over to TIME.com’s Person of the Year voting hub, where Pinnion’s technology is recording, visualizing and analyzing results as they are received. Votes from Twitter, Facebook and TIME.com’s voting hub are pooled together to create the totals displayed on the site.

Read next: Top 10 of Everything 2014

TIME World India

Modi Drops From Lead in TIME’s Person of the Year Poll

Ferguson protestors surged ahead this week of the leader of the world's largest democracy

Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi has fallen to second in TIME’s Person of the Year poll with seven days to go in the voting.

A wave of unrest in Ferguson and around the country focused attention back on the United States this week, lifting Ferguson protestors into first place in the TIME reader polls with 10.7% of the vote. Modi slid into second with 10% of the vote.

Modi, the newly elected Indian prime minister–and leader of the largest democracy in the world–has raised high hopes among Indians that he can invigorate the country’s economy and cut bureaucratic red tape that has slowed development in India.

A grand jury’s decision in Ferguson on Monday not to indict a police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black man has caused an outcry across the United States, as thousands of protesters marched in solidarity with the family of victim Michael Brown. Demonstrations at the end of the week disrupted Black Friday shopping in San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Seattle.

Since 1927, TIME has named a person who, for better or worse, has most influenced the news and our lives in the past year.

The Person of the Year is selected by TIME’s editors, but readers are asked to weigh in by commenting on any TIME Facebook post that includes #TIMEPOY, tweeting your vote using #TIMEPOY, or by heading over to TIME.com’s Person of the Year voting hub, where Pinnion’s technology is recording, visualizing and analyzing results as they are received. Votes from Twitter, Facebook and TIME.com’s voting hub are pooled together to create the totals displayed on the site.

You can see the results of the poll and vote on your choice for person of the year here.

Who should be TIME’s Person of the Year? Vote Below for #TIMEPOY

TIME U.S. Ferguson

Ferguson Protesters Take Lead in TIME’s Person of the Year Poll

The protests over the grand jury decision this week have captivated international attention

Ferguson protestors have gained the lead in TIME’s Person of the Year poll, with seven days to go in the voting.

Unrest in Ferguson and around the country focused attention on race and policing, helping to lift Ferguson protestors into first place in the TIME reader poll with 10.7% of the vote. Thousands of demonstrators marched in solidarity with the family of Michael Brown, an unarmed black man who was shot by the police, disrupting Black Friday shopping in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Seattle and other cities.

Protests cropped up all across the United States in the wake of a grand jury’s decision in Ferguson Monday not to indict the white police officer who fatally shot Brown.

Narendra Modi, the newly elected Indian prime minister, stands at 10% in the polls. As the leader of the largest democracy in the world, Modi has raised high hopes among Indians that he can invigorate the country’s economy and cut bureaucratic red tape that has slowed development in India.

Should the Ferguson Protestors Be TIME’s Person of the Year? Vote Below for #TIMEPOY

Since 1927, TIME has named a person who for better or worse has most influenced the news and our lives in the past year.

The Person of the Year is selected by TIME’s editors, but readers are asked to weigh in by commenting on any TIME Facebook post that includes #TIMEPOY, tweeting your vote using #TIMEPOY, or by heading over to TIME.com’s Person of the Year voting hub, where Pinnion’s technology is recording, visualizing and analyzing results as they are received. Votes from Twitter, Facebook and TIME.com’s voting hub are pooled together to create the totals displayed on the site. You can see the results of the poll and vote on your choice for person of the year here.

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