In the midst of the bitterly contentious Iraq War, Time dubbed Bush an ‘American revolutionary’ who had reshaped politics to ‘fit his 10-gallon-hat leadership style’. Those who believed Al Gore should really have become president may well have been incensed by Bush being named Person of the Year, even though Time did acknowledge that ‘the candidate with the perfect bloodlines comes to office amid charges that his is a bastard presidency.’ Perhaps even more controversial was Bush’s 2004 citation as Man of the Year. Bush just scraping to victory after a recount. The 2000 US presidential election was one of the most polarising political debacles in the nation’s history, with George W. Time magazine slammed Khomeini as a glorified terrorist, saying ‘the revolution that he led to triumph threatens to upset the world balance of power more than any other political event since Hitler's conquest of Europe.’ While this was obviously a highly critical take, the magazine’s decision to ‘award” Khomeini the Man of the Year title nevertheless triggered backlash in the US, largely because the embassy siege was still going on (and would in fact not end until 1981). The same year, Iranian students stormed the US Embassy in Tehran, taking dozens of staffers hostage. The Islamic cleric had become the Supreme Leader of Iran in 1979, following the overthrow of the pro-Western Shah. One of Time’s most controversial picks for Man of the Year was the Ayatollah Khomeini. A decade later, it was Adolf Hitler’s turn. Read more about: Cold War What if America had won the Vietnam War? The claim: Hitler’s selection as Time ‘Man of the Year’ shows why the media ‘is not your friend’ Time magazine’s Person of the Year franchise began in 1927, then known as Man of the Year.The first person to appear on the cover was Charles Lindbergh in 1928, following his historic solo flight across the Atlantic. It also powerfully and accurately described the Nazi leader as ‘the greatest threatening force that the democratic, freedom-loving world faces today.’ The cover of the issue depicted the dictator playing a gothic organ draped with dead bodies, while the article poured scorn on the ‘horrified and apparently impotent world’ for allowing Hitler to re-establish Germany as a military power. In Hitler’s case, he was selected because of his malign influence in Europe, and the magazine was absolutely vehement in its condemnation.
The fact that Hitler was named Man of the Year in 1938 has long provoked disbelief among those who aren’t aware of Time magazine’s morally neutral criteria for selection. Potential activities: Students research how Hitler expanded German territory and power in Europe before the outbreak of the Second World War. Here are some of the most striking examples from across the past century. Instead, the Person of the Year is any individual who’s had the biggest impact, for better or for worse. Some choices may seem surprising or even shocking at first glance, but that’s because the designation isn’t necessarily supposed to mark someone out as worthy of praise. Politicians, business titans, activists and religious leaders are among those who’ve been declared Time’s Person of the Year. So, they came up with the concept of the ‘Man of the Year’, beginning an annual tradition – since re-named Person of the Year – that still triggers discussion and debate to this day. As they’d missed the boat on the original news story, Time needed an excuse to belatedly put Lindbergh on the cover. Subsequent bad weather conditions caused the attack to be postponed several times after that.In late 1927, editors at Time magazine collectively facepalmed over the fact they hadn’t yet devoted a cover to Charles Lindbergh, the pilot who’d become a global sensation earlier that year by flying solo cross the Atlantic. The Belgian army got hold of the German attack plans when a German aircraft made an emergency landing in Belgium in early 1940. Some German officers dressed up as tourists to map out the area, and they also received information from Germans living in the Netherlands.īut not all German preparations were running smoothly. The Germans used espionage to discover the weak points in the Dutch defence.
Germany planned to defeat Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg by catching them off guard in a swift attack, the so-called Blitzkrieg. Their occupation of the Netherlands would also prevent England from setting up a base of operations on the European mainland. They wanted to bypass the French defence line at the eastern border by going through the Netherlands and Belgium. The goal of the Germans was to conquer France.
The planned attack on the Netherlands was part of a larger plan of attack, of which the code name was Fall Gelb.