Good for Time.

Its Person of the Year was Vladimir Putin, who has presided over the economic rebirth of his nation and reasserted Russia's role as a great power.

A first runner-up was Gen. David Petraeus, leader of the "surge" in Iraq that staved off what appeared a U.S. defeat and debacle, and helped revive the Bush presidency. Indeed, the antiwar Congress was arguably the greatest disappointment and biggest loser of 2007.

After its absurd choice last year of "You" as Person of the Year, Time seems to have returned to a tradition begun in 1927, when the first Man of the Year was Charles Lindbergh, the young American who was first to fly the Atlantic alone.

In those years, when Time was required reading for serious men and women, the magazine chronicled, with its annual Man of the Year selection, the seriousness of the times.

In 1932 the choice was FDR, who had just swept to power in the Great Depression. Two years later, as the New Deal was underway, FDR gained seats in both houses and was again Man of the Year.

In 1935, the Man of the Year was Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, whose nation had just been invaded by Benito Mussolini, who sought to erect a New Roman Empire in Africa.

Italy's invasion brought League of Nations sanctions that enraged Mussolini, shattered the British-French-Italian Stresa Front against Nazi Germany, and pushed Il Duce into the arms of Hitler.

In 1936 the Person of the Year was the twice-divorced Mrs. Wallace Warfield Simpson, the future Duchess of Windsor whose affair with and marriage to King Edward VIII forced his abdication. George VI, father of Elizabeth, took the throne.

That was the year Hitler moved his army back into the demilitarized Rhineland, and hosted the Olympic Games.

In 1937, the Man of the Year was China's Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, whose nation was the victim of Japanese aggression in a war that would last eight years and be remembered forever for the Rape of Nanking on Dec. 13, 1937, just before the Time issue came out.

In 1938, Time declined to give the honor to Neville Chamberlain, who had won the plaudits of the world for Munich, but saw clearly the Man of the Year was Hitler. On March 9, Hitler had sent his army into Austria to effect an Anschluss. On Sept. 30 he had bullied Britain and France into informing the Czechs they must give up the Sudetenland to ensure the peace of Europe. Hitler had added 10 million Germans to the Reich without firing a shot. Continued...