Curated playlist
Time Person of the Year
- Mahatma GandhiOn the day India won freedom, Gandhi refused to celebrate. He fasted and spun cloth in Calcutta, pleading for peace.
- John F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy spent hours in the water towing a burned crewman after a destroyer cut his boat in half.
- Donald TrumpDonald Trump was a millionaire in inflation-adjusted terms by age eight.
- Taylor SwiftEvery record label in Nashville turned Taylor Swift away when she was 11. She kept going and began writing songs.
- Ronald ReaganRonald Reagan preached small government, then signed California's largest tax hike.
- Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. Roosevelt was paralyzed from the waist down, and he was careful never to be seen in his wheelchair.
- George H. W. BushAfter being shot down in 1944, George H. W. Bush asked why he alone had been spared. Both of his crewmates died.
- Barack ObamaObama rejected a plan to bomb a compound in Pakistan and sent Navy SEALs instead. The 2011 raid killed Osama bin Laden.
- Martin Luther King Jr.Martin Luther King Jr. died at the age of 39, yet his autopsy showed the heart of a 60 year old, according to his biographer Taylor Branch. Branch attributed the damage to stress. The causes were many. King was jailed repeatedly, attacked…
- Nikita KhrushchevNikita Khrushchev spent four hours in 1956 tearing down Stalin's reputation. He had helped carry out Stalin's purges.
- Elon MuskIn 2001, Elon Musk traveled to Moscow twice to buy missiles, hoping to launch a plant greenhouse to Mars.
- Winston ChurchillWinston Churchill escaped a prisoner-of-war camp in Pretoria by hiding on freight trains. It made him famous.
- Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin once trained to be a Russian Orthodox priest. He later led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death.
- Jimmy CarterJimmy Carter once was lowered into a crippled nuclear reactor for 90 seconds at a time. He later ran for president.
- Elizabeth IIElizabeth II was born only third in line to the throne. Edward VIII's abdication in 1936 made her heir.
- Pope John Paul IIPope John Paul II visited the man who shot him in 1981 and called him a brother.
- Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was rejected twice by Vienna's art academy. He later became dictator of Germany.
- Dwight D. EisenhowerEisenhower wrote a note taking all blame if D-Day failed. He drafted it on the eve of the June 1944 landings.
- Ruhollah KhomeiniAt Ruhollah Khomeini's 1989 funeral, the body fell out of the coffin. Grieving crowds in Tehran forced a second funeral.
- Anwar SadatAnwar Sadat was shot dead by his own soldiers at a parade celebrating his war.
- Mikhail GorbachevMikhail Gorbachev refused to declare a state of emergency during the August 1991 coup.
- Mark ZuckerbergIn January 2024, Mark Zuckerberg turned to families of harmed children at a Senate hearing and apologized.
- Pope FrancisPope Francis stepped onto the balcony of Saint Peter's Basilica in March 2013 and greeted the crowd with one plain Italian word, "Buonasera", which means good evening. Moments later he described himself as a pope who had come almost from…
- Chiang Kai-shekWestern observers once called Chiang Kai-shek the Red General. In 1927 he purged thousands of suspected Communists.
- Harry S. TrumanHarry Truman became president knowing nothing about the atomic bomb. He had been vice president for only 82 days.
- Henry KissingerHenry Kissinger made a secret trip to China in July 1971. It helped end 23 years of diplomatic isolation.
- John Foster DullesJohn Foster Dulles ran U.S. foreign policy while his brother Allen ran the CIA.
- Charles de GaulleCharles de Gaulle tried five times to escape German prison camps in the First World War. He even posed as a nurse.
- Yuri AndropovYuri Andropov saw officers strung up from Budapest lampposts. Historian Christopher Andrew says it haunted him.
- Konrad AdenauerObservers said Konrad Adenauer became West Germany's first chancellor by one vote, his own. He was 73.
- Vladimir PutinVladimir Putin's grandfather cooked personal meals for both Lenin and Stalin. Putin later joined the KGB in 1975.
- Greta ThunbergGreta Thunberg, aged fifteen, sat alone outside Sweden's parliament in August 2018.
- Willy BrandtWilly Brandt, later West Germany's chancellor, fled Nazi Germany under a false name. He made it legal in 1948.
- Edward TellerEdward Teller stood and watched the Trinity test while nearly everyone else lay face-down.
- Charles LindberghCharles Lindbergh stared at a huge field of glowing lights near Paris in May 1927 and took it for a giant industrial complex. He had just flown alone across the Atlantic, and the airfield he was hunting was not on his map. All he knew was…
- Personal computerPaul Terrell of the Byte Shop ordered 50 Apple I computers, but only if they came assembled.
- Mohammad MosaddeghIran's popular prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was buried in his own living room. He died in 1967 under house arrest.
- Demis HassabisDemis Hassabis changed one letter to turn a Greek word for butcher into his surname. He later won a Nobel Prize.
- James F. ByrnesJames F. Byrnes left school at 14 and later sat on the U.S. Supreme Court. He never earned a law degree.
- Jensen HuangJensen Huang founded Nvidia in a Denny's booth, where he once worked as a dishwasher. Three engineers pooled $600.
- Sam AltmanSam Altman was fired as OpenAI's CEO in November 2023. Most of the staff threatened to quit, and he returned.
- Dario AmodeiOpenAI's board once asked Dario Amodei to replace Sam Altman as its chief executive. He turned it down.
- Haile SelassieIn 1992, the bones of Haile Selassie I were found beneath a concrete slab on the grounds of a palace. The man buried there had been born Tafari Makonnen. He had ruled Ethiopia as emperor from 1930 to 1974. How does a ruler of such rank end…
- Linus PaulingLinus Pauling left high school without a diploma. He later won two unshared Nobel Prizes, a first in history.