Angela Merkel Named Time Magazine's 'Person of the Year'

Time magazine has named their 2015 person of the year but it is the runner-ups that might surprise you.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year.”

The announcement was made on the Today show on Wednesday morning. The award, which is not given out as a popularity contest, goes to the most newsworthy people of the year. 

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Merkel was picked for her work with solving Europe’s financial crisis.

Time wrote in the issue: “Not once or twice but three times this year there has been reason to wonder whether Europe could continue to exist, not culturally or geographically but as a historic experiment in ambitious statecraft.”

They added: “Merkel had already emerged as the indispensable player in managing Europe’s serial debt crises; she also led the West’s response to Vladimir Putin’s creeping theft of Ukraine. But now the prospect of Greek bankruptcy threatened the very existence of the euro zone. The migrant and refugee crisis challenged the principle of open borders. And finally, the carnage in Paris revived the reflex to slam doors, build walls and trust no one.”

Last year, the Ebola fighters were named the "People of the Year." 

ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was named the runner-up to Merkel.

The magazine wrote he: “transformed the breakaway al-Qaeda group from a battlefield force operating in the chaos of Syria and Iraq into a transnational terrorist franchise killing civilians in more than a dozen countries around the world.”

Time added: “ISIS has killed more than 1,200 civilian victims outside of Iraq and Syria this year while luring a steady stream of recruits to the so-called Islamic State.”

Behind the ISIS leader was Donald Trump.

From his outlandish rhetoric while running for president to his media domination, Trump was everywhere this year.

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Other people of the year included Black Lives Matter activists, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, Caitlyn Jenner and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders became the people’s vote for “Person of the Year.”

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