Table of contents for December 24, 2018 in TIME Magazine

2 ‘I plan to keep this cover nearby for encouragement through difficult times.’ JIM DAVIS, Grand Rapids, Mich., on the Jan. 15 Optimists issue, curated by TIME’s first guest editor, Bill Gates 4 ‘They marched. Now, they’re a force to be reckoned with.’ KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York Senator, tweeting about Charlotte Alter’s Jan. 29 story on the record number of women running for office 9 ‘Statistics cannot reflect the pain and anguish of family and friends.’ PATRICIA ALVERSON, Chattanooga, Tenn., on the March 5 special issue…

Artwork The Smithsonian’s new Obama portraits MacGuffin The universe-bending Infinity Stones from Avengers: Infinity War Formalwear Meghan Markle’s Givenchy wedding dress Mascot Googly-eyed Gritty, of the Philadelphia Flyers Accessory The midterms’ “I Voted” stickers Bauble Ariana Grande’s (brief) engagement ring Underwear Rihanna’s size-inclusive Savage X Fenty lingerie Condiment Slice of Sauce’s sliced ketchup Document Brett Kavanaugh’s 1982 calendar Disposable Starbucks’ phased-out plastic straws Acronym IHOb, for when IHOP temporarily became the International House of Burgers Toy Stuffed Pooh bears tossed on the ice for Olympic skater Yuzuru Hanyu Outerwear Melania Trump’s “I Really Don’t Care” jacket…

When a gunman entered a Waffle House near Nashville early in the morning on April 22, James Shaw Jr. didn’t want to be a hero. He wanted to survive. Shaw, then a 29-year-old AT&T technician, had arrived minutes earlier with a friend. Moving toward the bathroom as the first bullets were fired, he had no escape in sight. “I had pretty much decided in my head that I was dead,” he says. But when he noticed the shooter had momentarily stopped firing and pointed the barrel of his AR-15 toward the ground, Shaw made a split-second decision. He rushed the shooter and managed to seize the rifle. Ultimately, four people were killed—but law enforcement said the number could have been far higher had Shaw, who suffered a bullet-graze wound…

Even in his own domain, Robert Mueller is often silent. When witnesses arrive at the special counsel’s office in southwest Washington, they are ushered through an underground parking garage and up to an austere, windowless conference room. Mueller’s prosecutors do the talking. The man in charge, if he appears at all, greets visitors with a polite handshake and then retreats to a seat against a wall. Since becoming special counsel for the Russia probe, Mueller has spoken only through his work: in the hundreds of pages of known court filings, some of which laid out Moscow’s alleged plots to help Donald Trump win the presidency; in the 34 people and entities he charged with crimes this year; in the plea deals he made with Trump’s former lawyer, former campaign…

It was past midnight on May 25, and the mood in the hastily convened national-security meeting in Seoul was dark. U.S. President Donald Trump had just canceled his forthcoming summit with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. Although the official record describes South Korean President Moon Jae-in as simply “perplexed” by the decision, one source present reveals his actual choice of words was so unrestrained it should be considered a “national secret.” But Moon has never been one for public histrionics. Instead, he got to work. Moon quickly dispatched deputies to the White House and met Kim the next day at the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that divides the Korean Peninsula’s communist and totalitarian North from its democratic South. “He persuaded the North Koreans to calm down and not…

THE DECEASED Slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s inclusion makes him the first posthumous selection UNDER 40 Seven individuals received the title before age 40. At 25, Charles Lindbergh is youngest U.S. PRESIDENTS Of 15 Presidents since 1927, only Hoover and Ford were not recognized. Eight were named twice. FDR is the only person to notch a hat trick ADVERSARIES In 1983 and 1998, the title was shared by pairs on opposite sides of an issue INANIMATE INFLUENCE The Computer (1982) and the Endangered Earth (1988) have both been recognized WOMEN TIME chose the group “American Women” in 1975. Only four women have held the solo title of Person of the Year FOREIGN FIGURES A third of the individuals—including three Popes—were not American NOTE: CHART CATEGORIES REFLECT CHARACTERISTICS CITED IN TIME’S…

JANUARY ‘I will not rest until every last trace of your influence on this sport has been destroyed like the cancer it is.’ ALY RAISMAN, U.S. Olympic gymnast, in a sentencing hearing for former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar; he pleaded guilty to seven counts of criminal sexual conduct ‘Trust me, the women in this room tonight are not here for the food. We are here for the work.’ FRANCES MCDORMAND, referencing the #MeToo movement while accepting a Golden Globe for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri FEBRUARY ‘Can we call that treason? Why not?’ DONALD TRUMP, U.S. President, on Democrats’ not clapping during his State of the Union address; the White House later clarified that he was joking ‘O Canada! Our home and native land! True patriot love in…

AS A 4-YEAR-OLD BOY DANGLED helplessly from the balcony of an apartment building in France on May 26, passerby Mamoudou Gassama sprang into action. In less than a minute, the migrant from Mali, then 22, scaled at least four floors, unaided, using only his bare hands to pull the boy to safety. In a video of the harrowing moment, which has been widely viewed around the world, Gassama hauls himself up from balcony railing to balcony railing while a crowd of onlookers screams below. Within seconds, he maneuvers over to the boy and appears to pull him up with one arm. Gassama said he didn’t have time to be afraid until the child was safe on the other side of the railing. “When I started to climb, [the mission]…

Last year, farmworker women captured many people’s attention when Alianza Nacional de Campesinas (National Farmworker Women’s Alliance) published what became known as the “Dear Sisters” letter in TIME. It was a letter written on behalf of about 700,000 women employed in agriculture to the women employed in the entertainment industry who had disclosed sexual violence against them by powerful people in their industry. This was not an aberration for us. Over the years, we have demonstrated support on behalf of domestic workers, janitors and hotel workers, among others. Though the difference was that this time the world took notice. As women, and as a society, we are finding our collective voice when it comes to speaking out against harassment, retaliation, violence and all the ensuing issues that come with…

MOST YEARS HAVE AT LEAST A LITTLE something going for them, but 1968 was awful from the start. On just the 23rd day, North Korea seized the U.S.S. Pueblo, killing one sailor and holding the rest prisoner; on the 30th day, the start of the Vietnamese holiday of Tet, the Viet Cong launched a massive military offensive that cost more than 35,000 lives on both sides; on the 95th day, the Rev. Martin Luther King was murdered; on the 157th day, Senator Bobby Kennedy’s murder followed; on the 233rd day, Soviet army tanks crashed into Czechoslovakia; on the 241st day, the Democratic National Convention in Chicago descended into violence. The year was shaped—and soaked in—the blood that was shed. And then, on the 359th day, there was poetry. Three…

JANUARY JAN. 22 Amazon Go First cashierless convenience store opens to the public in Seattle FEBRUARY FEB. 4 Philadelphia Eagles First Super Bowl win in franchise history FEB. 22 Lindsey Vonn Last Olympic event for the star American skier MARCH MARCH 4 Jordan Peele First black writer to win the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay MARCH 6 Teachers’ strike Last day of the West Virginia walkout that shut down public schools across the state MARCH 20 Northern white rhino Last living male of the endangered subspecies dies in Kenya APRIL MAY MAY 16 Kashmir First Ramadan cease-fire in 18 years is declared by India against rebels in the disputed territory MAY 17 Gina Haspel First woman to lead the CIA is confirmed by the Senate JUNE JUNE…

A MEANINGFUL RIDE On Oct. 13, a man boarded a public bus in Milwaukee and told the driver, 34-year-old Natalie Barnes, that his house had been condemned so he’d been living on the streets. Surveillance footage shows that she provided him with shelter, letting him ride the bus for about six hours, as temperatures outside plunged to the low 30s. She bought him dinner after her shift and went on to help him find temporary housing. “At some point in our lives, everybody needs help,” she says. MATH HELP TO GO Riding a New York City subway train in April, Corey Simmons was visibly boggled by the fractions in his 9-year-old son’s math homework. In a moment captured in a viral image, a stranger named Lawrence Shoken, 59, offered…

Some Presidents have plans to change the world. They execute their strategies step by step and are judged by how far they get. Donald Trump came to the presidency by surprise and has attended to its responsibilities erratically. And yet, just as he rewrote the rules of politics in 2016 and remade the presidency in 2017, Trump left his mark on the planet this year. He played a role in virtually every one of the year’s major trends, from the battle over social media’s influence to the populist wave sweeping Europe to the new direction of the U.S. Supreme Court. But his greatest impact hasn’t come through conventional actions: the articulation of a governing agenda, the management of international relationships, the championing of legislation. Instead, true to the unpredictability…

When a gunman murdered 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Valentine’s Day, the shooting at first seemed like one more entry in a gruesome log. For years, each gun massacre in the U.S. has spurred the same grim routine: the shock and grief of survivors; the thoughts and prayers from politicians; the calls for change from gun-control groups. Each time the story would fade and the nation would move on, at least until the next tragedy. But this time something was different. The nation didn’t move on, because the Parkland students didn’t let it. In the days after the shooting, an ordinary group of high school kids demanded that America confront the epidemic of gun violence more forcefully than it had in years.…

The Smith Rafael Film Center in Marin County, Calif., doesn’t look anything like the places where Ryan Coogler saw movies as a child. A 1930s movie palace adorned with an art-nouveau mural of two goddesses emerging from the sea and sapphire-hued lamps illuminating the lobby, it typically plays indies and foreign films. But as Coogler makes his way inside on a rainy November day, he hears something familiar: the pounding drums from the decidedly mainstream movie he directed, Black Panther. He bobs his head to the beat, pulling off his raincoat to reveal a Jaws T-shirt. Jaws is the kind of movie Coogler, 32, was raised on: blockbusters that play to big crowds. In many ways that’s exactly the movie he made. And with Black Panther, he made an…

A gospel choir, an African-American preacher, a whirl of wokeness at Windsor. Never before had the likes of Serena Williams or Oprah Winfrey had call to attend St. George’s Chapel as wedding guests. Never before had a dreadlocked black woman from Los Angeles gained English monarchy as in-laws, or listened with silent emotion to an impassioned sermon on unity and black pain in their lofty church as her child joined their ranks. When they emerged—Harry and Meghan, now prince and princess, shining in the afternoon light, she resplendent in snowy white and he in his medals—it was the same picture as other royal weddings, but this was a fairy tale for the modern multicultural age. It’s been a good year for a fairy tale. In Britain alone, where Brexit…

ONLINE, LIES AND TRUTH LOOK THE SAME. THIS HAS been a boon for professional liars, who take advantage of the fact that two-thirds of Americans get their news from social media, and use these platforms to market falsehoods—as moneymaking ventures (paranoid fantasies make excellent clickbait); as vehicles of personal fame; or, for foreign powers like China and Russia, as a way to spread propaganda in hopes of influencing voters and thereby our elections. For the unwitting consumer of fraudulent news, the avoidance of hard truths is surely part of the draw. How much better it would be if the Sandy Hook massacre really were a hoax, rather than an actual slaughter of 20 kindergartners and six school staff members. What a relief to conclude that hundreds of international climatologists…