When he and his helper prepared a cylinder for use, none of the gas came out-yet the cylinder weighed the same as before. Plunkett had produced a hundred pounds of tetrafluoroethylene gas (TFE) and stored it in small cylinders at dry-ice temperatures before chlorinating it. Plunkett’s first assignment at DuPont was researching new chlorofluorocarbon refrigerants-then seen as great advances over earlier refrigerants like sulfur dioxide and ammonia, which regularly poisoned food-industry workers and people in their homes. 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’.Hagley Museum and Library gift of Roy PlunkettDiscovery of Teflon 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. Read more about: Cold War What if America had won the Vietnam War? 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. 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. 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.