30 Time December 27, 2021/January 3, 2022
LUKE SHARRETT—BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES; GAZA CITY: MOHAMMED TALATENE—DPA/PICTURE ALLIANCE/GETTY IMAGES; HAUGEN: DREW ANGERER—GETTY IMAGESBIDEN: ALEX WONG—GETTY IMAGES; ETHIOPIA: YASUYOSHI CHIBA—AFP/GETTY IMAGES; AFGHANISTAN: JIM HUYLEBROEK—THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX; PALM TREE:
Then&NowFranklin D. Roosevelt
With the U.S. stricken by the Great Depression, TIME explained
that voters “wrote their own ticket for Man of the Year” by electing
Democratic legislators—a clear endorsement of FDR’s New Deal.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, President Joe Biden, weakened by
soft approval ratings, now struggles to shepherd his Build Back
Better agenda through a sharply divided Congress.1934
The American Fighting-man
Six months into the Korean War, TIME lauded the dedication of
U.S. soldiers, particularly those who had never expected to see
active duty. Today, the U.S. reckons with the consequences of
its haphazard withdrawal from Afghanistan, after 20 years of war
that killed not only more than 2,400 American troops, but also
tens of thousands of Afghan and Pakistani civilians.1950
The Peacemakers
Among a group of “peacemakers” TIME recognized as working
to end decades of conflict were Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Some three decades later
the conflict grinds on, flaring in May when Hamas and Israeli
forces traded fire that killed hundreds, mostly Palestinians. The
outbreak followed moves against Palestinians inside Israel.1993
Haile Selassie
TIME praised Selassie’s leadership when Ethiopia was
battling Italian invaders, although the emperor was later
accused of violently repressing rebellion. Current Prime
Minister Abiy Ahmed—a 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner—
is locked in civil war in the same region, his government
accused of ethnic cleansing and forced starvation.1935
The Whistleblowers
At Enron, WorldCom and the FBI, three women became whistle-blow-
ers in 2002 after failing to convince internal leabders to take action
and curb wrongdoing. This year, disillusioned with Facebook’s treat-
ment of its “civic integrity” team, which was meant to fight misinfor-
mation and improve user safety from the inside, former employee
Frances Haugen made damaging internal documents public.2002
The Endangered Earth
Our destruction of the world’s natural habitats will cause a
crisis for biodiversity, TIME wrote of its “Planet of the Year” pick,
warning that “humanity is at war with the plants and animals
that share its planet.” Decades later, the current trajectory
of climate change now threatens to make much of the globe
uninhabitable for another species: us.