Person of the Year 2009

The story of the year was a weak economy that could have been much, much weaker. How the mild-mannered man who runs the Federal Reserve prevented an economic catastrophe

Full List

Person of the Year 2009

  1. Ben Bernanke
  2. 'Too big to fail is one of the biggest problems we face in this country.'

Runners-Up

  1. General Stanley McChrystal
  2. The Chinese Worker
  3. Nancy Pelosi
  4. Usain Bolt

People Who Mattered

  1. Neda Agha-Soltan
  2. Glenn Beck
  3. Lloyd Blankfein
  4. Rahm Emanuel
  5. Dr. Thomas Frieden
  6. Jon and Kate Gosselin
  7. Hamid Karzai
  8. Adam Lambert
  9. Jay Leno and David Letterman
  10. Bernie Madoff
  11. Alan Mulally
  12. Barack Obama
  13. Manny Pacquiao
  14. Sarah Palin
  15. Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart of Twilight
  16. Alex Rodriguez
  17. Olympia Snowe
  18. Sonia Sotomayor
  19. Chesley B. (Sully) Sullenberger III
  20. Taylor Swift
  21. The Twitter Guys
  22. Joe Wilson
  23. Tiger Woods
  24. Manuel Zelaya and Roberto Micheletti
  25. Zhou Xiaochuan

People Who Mattered Poll Results

  1. Your Results

Fond Farewells

  1. Corazon Aquino
  2. Bea Arthur
  3. Norman Borlaug
  4. David Carradine
  5. Marilyn Chambers
  6. Walter Cronkite
  7. Merce Cunningham
  8. Natalya Estemirova
  9. Farrah Fawcett
  10. Horton Foote
  11. John Hope Franklin
  12. Millard Fuller
  13. Larry Gelbart
  14. Paul Harvey
  15. Thomas Hoving
  16. John Hughes
  17. Maurice Jarre
  18. Michael Jackson
  19. Ingemar Johansson
  20. Jennifer Jones
  21. Stanley Kaplan
  22. Jack Kemp
  23. Ted Kennedy
  24. Willem J. Kolff
  25. Claude Lévi-Strauss
  26. Karl Malden
  27. Frank McCourt
  28. Ed McMahon
  29. Robert McNamara
  30. Brittany Murphy
  31. Robert Novak
  32. Les Paul
  33. Claiborne Pell
  34. Irving Penn
  35. Natasha Richardson
  36. Oral Roberts
  37. William Safire
  38. Soupy Sales
  39. Paul Samuelson
  40. Budd Schulberg
  41. Ron Silver
  42. Naomi Sims
  43. Helen Suzman
  44. Patrick Swayze
  45. George Tiller
  46. Mary Travers
  47. John Updike
  48. Andrew Wyeth
  49. Velupillai Prabhakaran
  50. John Mortimer
  51. Jeanne-Claude
  52. Shi Pei Pu
  53. Kim Dae Jung

Persons of Years Past

  1. Bono
  2. Cynthia Cooper, Coleen Rowley and Sherron Watkins
  3. Rudy Giuliani
  4. Dr. David Ho
  5. Peter Ueberroth
  6. The Apollo 8 Astronauts

Person of the Year Videos

  1. Why TIME Chose Ben Bernanke
  2. How the Federal Reserve Works
  3. Joe Klein on General Stanley McChrystal
  4. The Little Known Facts

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  1. To Our Readers: The Good Banker
  2. Extended Interview

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