It certainly is interesting looking at that historical list of who won it each year, Jack. Adolf Hitler won it in 1938...just a year before the start of WWII. Ghandi won it in 1930, not surprisingly. He'd have had to win it at some point.

It appears to be an acknowledgement mostly of who is the most newsworthy and talked about person (or people) that year. Sort of like the media confirming their biggest obsession of the moment, just so it's official. Some of them are virtually forgotten now, but they must have seemed very important then, like Chiang Kai-Shek and his wife in 1937 during their war with the invading Japanese. The Baby Boomers (as a group) won it in 1966, the pivotal year of cultural change in the tumultuous 60s.

Mohammed Mossadegh the elected prime minister of Iran got it in 1951, by golly! The Iranians have not forgotten him, but most North Americans don't even know his name. He was brought down in 1953 by a CIA and British MI6-backed coup which replaced him with the Shah....mostly so that Iran's oil would not be nationalized, but would remain in the control of western oil corporations.