TIME'S choice of a Man of the Year seems, in retrospect, an obvious extension of our practice of singling out a man each week to put on our cover. But not until TIME was nearly five years old did it occur to the editors to proclaim a hero it described as "the most cherished citizen since Theodore Roosevelt" as Man of the Year. In those vividly irreverent days, TIME, in the midst of much praise, noted Charles A. Lindbergh's large feet, and ruefully recorded: "Eleanor Glyn avers he lacks It."

Next year, TIME recorded that "the doings of Walter P. Chrysler, already prodigious, have become fabulous." The ambitious automaker had launched Plymouth in July, De Soto in August, brought out Dodge and set out to build the world's largest skyscraper -- all in one year. "Curiously, it was in a jail at year's end" that TIME found the Man of 1930: Mohandas Gandhi. In 193 2, TIME asked of Franklin D. Roosevelt, "Will he make good in the White House? The country is only too ready to hope so." In 1934 it was F.D.R. again, "and only the narrowest partisan could cavil." Roosevelt in 1941 became the only three-time choice, though Winston Churchill in 1949 became the "man of the half-century."

At times, the event has overwhelmed any single man: the Korean G.I. in 1950, and the Hungarian Freedom Fighter in 1956 anonymously represented many. Often the choice of a Man of the Year became an accolade, but not always, and in the years when the likes of Joe Stalin or Hitler was chosen, there were many angry readers who did not grasp our definition: a man or woman who dominated the news that year and left an indelible mark -- for good or ill -- on history. Khrushchev was allowed to look triumphant the year of the Sputnik (1957), but Hitler in the year of Munich (1938) already had so much blood on his hands that he was made a small figure playing a hymn of hate on a giant organ -- as if the editors wanted to be doubly sure that Hitler could not use TIME'S choice for his own glorification.

Through the years, TIME readers have been encouraged to volunteer their own nominations, which frequently agree with our selection, but sometimes don't. (There have been years when Westbrook Pegler was the name most often submitted. TIME never found Peg's mark -- for good or ill -- that indelible on any year's news.)

This year, 85,000 college and high school students, in classrooms where TIME is used, are among those trying to outguess TIME'S editors. For those who got it wrong, we will confide that the leading nominations from readers (though not in this order) were U Thant, Kennedy, Mrs. Roosevelt, James Meredith, Castro, Adlai Stevenson, and the man who on this week's cover is proclaimed the Man of 1962.

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