Time Magazine: If American Prez, then person of the year?

What are the chances of a non-American becoming Time magazine’s Person of the Year? Beginning in 1927, when the magazine launched the Man of the Year (which in 1999 became The Person of the Year), there have been 14 instances when no ‘person’ has been named: in 1950, when Time named “The American Fighting man”, in 1956 when the cover went to “The Hungarian Freedom fighter”, in 1960 when the honour belonged to “American scientists”, in 1966, when the “Baby Boomers” were named, in 1968 was the time for “Apollo 8 astronauts”, in 1969 when it went to “The middle Americans”, in 1975 to American Women”, in 1982 to “The computer”, in 1988 to “The endangered earth”, in 1993 to “The Peacemakers”, in 2002 to “The Whistleblowers”, in 2003 to “The Good Samaritans”, in 2006, to “You”, and, last year, to “The protestor.” So, since the tradition of the Person of the Year began, in 86 years, 72 individuals have been named, while in the other 14, it’s been organizations, causes or concepts. In many of the instances where no individual has been named, America is still the prominent winner, for example, with “American scientists” or “Apollo 8 astronauts. To get to the math, in 86 years, 52 years have featured Americans or covers connected with America – that’s an astonishing 60.5 percent occurrence. [caption id=“attachment_564270” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  An American President has an almost certain chance of making Time Person of the Year. AP[/caption] American presidents seem to have a fantastic chance of making it to the cover, with 20 of them featuring in the year they got elected or while in office. Since the list began, every serving US President has been a Person of the Year at least once, with Herbert Hoover and Gerald Ford being the only exceptions. Since 1927, individuals from only 18 countries have made it. The USA tops the leaderboard with 52, Russia/the erstwhile USSR follows with 7, China with 4. Germany with 3, France with 2, and others, such as India (with Mahatma Gandhi) with 1 each. So, in addition to being an American president or an American achiever or American cause, does anyone else have a predictable chance of making it? Yes. Become the Pope. The chances of making the cover are astounding if you’re the Pope. Since the Man of the Year began, 6 Popes have been elected and 2 have made it to the cover, giving the Pope a 33 percent chance of being Time magazine’s numero uno as well as the head of the world’s Christians. Time is clearly sexist as well. Only three women have made the list in their individual capacities. Wallis Simpson, Queen Elizabeth II and Corazon Aquino. Melinda Gates shared the cover with Bono in 2005. Now one understands why Mother Teresa didn’t make the cut. The fact that she was a woman went against her. Worse, she wasn’t American – and she wasn’t the Pope, either.