TIME's Person of the Year: A photo history

Published December 17, 2008 • Updated on December 6, 2023 at 11:42 am

See who (or what) has earned the title of TIME's Person of the Year over the last four decades.

36 photos

1/36

1988: The Endangered Earth

2/36

1989: Mikhail Gorbachev

3/36

1990: George H. W. Bush

4/36

1991: Ted Turner

5/36

1992: Bill Clinton

6/36

1993: Nelson Mandela, center-left; F.W. de Klerk, center-right; Yitzhak Rabin, left; Yasser Arafat, right.

7/36

1994: Pope John Paul II

8/36

1995: Newt Gingrich

9/36

1996: AIDS Researcher David Ho

10/36

1997: Intel chairman and CEO Andy Grove was hailed by the mag as "the person most responsible for the amazing growth in the power and innovative potential of microchips."

11/36

1998: Kenneth Starr and Bill Clinton

12/36

1999: Jeff Bezos

13/36

2000: George W. Bush

14/36

2001: Rudy Giuliani

15/36

2002: Cynthia Cooper, Coleen Rowley, and Sherron Watkins

16/36

2003: The American Soldier

17/36

2004: George W. Bush

18/36

2005: Bill Gates, Bono, and Melinda Gates

19/36

2006: Yes, you

20/36

2007: Vladimir Putin

21/36

2008: Barack Obama

22/36

2009: Ben Bernanke

23/36

2010: Mark Zuckerberg

24/36

2011: "The Protester"

25/36

2012: Barack Obama

26/36

2013: Pope Francis

27/36

2014: Ebola fighter Dr. Kent Brantly.

28/36

2015: Angela Merkel

29/36

2016: Donald Trump

30/36

2017: The Silence Breakers

31/36

2018: Jamal Khashoggi, Wa Lone, Kyaw Soe Oo, the Capital Gazette newspaper, and Maria Ressa.

32/36

2019: Greta Thunberg

33/36

2020L Joe Biden and Kamala Harris

34/36

2021: Elon Musk

35/36

2022: Volodymyr Zelensky

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2023: Taylor Swift

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