<P> Person of the Year (called Man of the Year or Woman of the Year until 1999) is an annual issue of the United States news magazine Time that features and profiles a person, a group, an idea, or an object that "for better or for worse...has done the most to influence the events of the year". </P> <P> The tradition of selecting a "Man of the Year" began in 1927, with Time editors contemplating the news makers of the years . The idea was also an attempt to remedy the editorial embarrassment earlier that year of not having aviator Charles Lindbergh on its cover following his historic trans - Atlantic flight . By the end of the year, it was decided that a cover story featuring Lindbergh as the Man of the Year would serve both purposes . </P> <P> Since the list began, every serving President of the United States has been a Man or Person of the Year at least once with the exceptions of Calvin Coolidge, in office at time of the first issue, Herbert Hoover, the next U.S. president, and Gerald Ford . Most were named Man or Person of the Year either the year they were elected or while they were in office; the only one to be given the title before being elected is Dwight D. Eisenhower, in 1944 as Supreme Commander of the Allied Invasion Force, eight years before his election . He subsequently received the title again in 1959, while in office . Franklin D. Roosevelt is the only person to have received the title three times, first as president - elect (1932) and later as the incumbent president (1934 and 1941). </P> <P> In 1999, the title was changed to Person of the Year . Women who have been selected for recognition after the renaming include "The Whistleblowers" (Cynthia Cooper, Coleen Rowley, and Sherron Watkins in 2002), Melinda Gates (jointly with Bill Gates and Bono, in 2005), Angela Merkel in 2015 and "The Silence Breakers" (Isabel Pascual, Adama Iwu, Ashley Judd, Susan Fowler and Taylor Swift in 2017). Prior to 1999, four women were granted the title as individuals: three as "Woman of the Year"--Wallis Simpson (1936), Queen Elizabeth II (1952), and Corazon Aquino (1986)--and one as half of the "Man and Wife of the Year", Soong Mei - ling (1937). "American Women" were recognized as a group in 1975 . Other classes of people recognized comprise both men and women, such as "Hungarian Freedom Fighters" (1956), "U.S. Scientists" (1960), "The Inheritors" (1966), "The Middle Americans" (1969), "The American Soldier" (2003), "You" (2006), "The Protester" (2011) represented on the cover by a woman, and "Ebola fighters" (2014). Although the title on the magazine remained "Man of The Year" for both the 1956 "Hungarian Freedom Fighter" and the 1966 "Twenty - five and Under" editions which both featured a woman standing behind a man, and "Men of the Year" on the 1960 "U.S. Scientists" edition which exclusively featured men on its cover . It wasn't until the 1969 edition on "The Middle Americans" did the title embrace "Man and Woman of the Year". </P>

Time magazine person of the year 3 times