By: History.com Editors

2019

16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg named Time’s Person of the Year

History.com Editors

Published: April 07, 2020

Last Updated: January 31, 2025

On December 11, 2019, 16-year-old Greta Thunberg is named Time magazine's Person of the Year. The Swedish climate activist became the first Person of the Year to be born in the 21st century and the youngest ever to receive the honor.

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Thunberg took to activism early, convincing her parents to become vegans, reduce their carbon footprint and avoid flying. In 2018, inspired by teenage gun control activists in the United States, she began a school strike that spread across Sweden and to other European countries. Before long, Thunberg was giving speeches throughout Europe and had become one of the most recognizable faces of climate activism. Thunberg delivered her message with a sense of urgency—"Our house is on fire," she said—that struck a chord with the public, particularly because it came from a child.

In August 2019, Thunberg sailed a solar-powered racing yacht across the Atlantic Ocean to promote carbon-neutral transit. After arriving in New York, she testified before the United States Congress and the U.N. Climate Action Summit, where she was characteristically blunt: "You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!"

Though Thunberg's message and mannerisms offended many on the right, her activism has made waves the world over. The Time cover announcing her as Person of the Year also touted "The Power of Youth," presaging the advent of the Sunrise Movement and other youth-led climate activism in the United States and across the world.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on December 11th

1777

British delay Washington’s march to Valley Forge

On December 11, 1777, General George Washington begins marching 12,000 soldiers of his Continental Army from Whitemarsh to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, for the winter. As Washington’s men began crossing the Schuylkill River, they were surprised by a regiment of several thousand British troops led by General Charles Cornwallis. Cornwallis came across the continental forces by […]

1915

Yuan Shih-kai accepts Chinese throne

With war raging in Europe, conflict also reigns in the Far East between two traditional enemies, Japan and an internally divided China. On December 11, 1915, the first president of the new Chinese republic, Yuan Shih-kai, who had come to power in the wake of revolution in 1911 and the fall of the Manchu Dynasty […]

1936

Edward VIII announces his abdication

King Edward VIII becomes the first English monarch to voluntarily abdicate the throne. He chose to abdicate in order to marry the American divorcée Wallis Warfield Simpson.

Edward Viii Giving His Abdication Broadcast To The Nation And The Empire, 11Th December 1936

1941

Germany declares war on the United States

Adolf Hitler declares war on the United States, bringing America, which had been neutral, into the European conflict. The bombing of Pearl Harbor surprised even Germany. Although Hitler had made an oral agreement with his Axis partner Japan that Germany would join a war against the United States, he was uncertain as to how the […]

1946

UNICEF founded

In the aftermath of World War II, the General Assembly of the United Nations votes to establish the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), an organization to help provide relief and support to children living in countries devastated by the war. After the food and medical crisis of the late 1940s passed, UNICEF continued […]

1961

First U.S. helicopters arrive in South Vietnam

The ferry carrier, USNS Core, arrives in Saigon with the first U.S. helicopter unit. This contingent included 33 Vertol H-21C Shawnee helicopters and 400 air and ground crewmen to operate and maintain them. Their assignment was to airlift South Vietnamese Army troops into combat.

1963

Frank Sinatra Jr. released by kidnappers

On December 11, kidnappers release Frank Sinatra, Jr., after abducting him in Lake Tahoe, California, three days earlier. The 19-year-old man, who was trying to follow in his father’s footsteps by pursuing a singing career, had been blindfolded and taken at gunpoint from his hotel room at Harrah’s Club Lodge and taken to Canoga Park, […]

1964

Sam Cooke dies under suspicious circumstances in LA

On December 11, 1964, in response to a reported shooting, officers of the Los Angeles Police Department are dispatched to the Hacienda Motel, where they find musician Sam Cooke dead on the office floor, shot three times in the chest by the motel’s manager, Bertha Franklin. The authorities ruled Cooke’s death a case of justifiable […]

1969

Soviets declare nudity a sign of “western decadence”

The secretary of the Moscow writer’s union declares that nudity as displayed in the popular play Oh! Calcutta! is a sign of decadence in Western culture. More disturbing, he claimed, was the fact that this “bourgeois” thinking was infecting Russian youth. Sergei Mikhailkov, best known for writing books for children in Russia, lashed out at […]

1973

Gay rights advocate interrupts Walter Cronkite’s news broadcast

On December 11, 1973, gay rights activist Mark Segal interrupts Walter Cronkite’s live broadcast of the “CBS Evening News” in New York City by sitting on Cronkite’s desk with a sign that says “Gays Protest CBS Prejudice.” His objection to the network’s biased coverage of queer people reaches millions of Americans, and helps change Cronkite’s […]

1978

Millions stolen from JFK Airport in infamous ‘Lufthansa heist’

On December 11, 1978 half a dozen masked robbers raided the Lufthansa Airlines cargo building at JFK Airport in New York, making off with more than $5 million in cash ($21 million in today’s dollars) and almost $1 million in jewelry. To this day, the Lufthansa heist, as it is known, is considered one of […]

1994

Russian forces enter Chechnya

In the largest Russian military offensive since the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks pour into the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya. Encountering only light resistance, Russian forces had by evening pushed to the outskirts of the Chechen capital of Grozny, where several thousand Chechen volunteers vowed a bitter fight […]

1997

Kyoto Protocol first adopted in Japan

On December 11, 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, the United Nations adopts a new treaty for the purpose of limiting greenhouse gas emissions. The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was a revolutionary attempt to forestall climate change, an admirable effort that yielded mixed results. In the ’80s and ’90s, the […]

2008

Billionaire conman Bernard Madoff arrested

On December 11, 2008, financier Bernard Madoff is arrested at his New York City apartment and charged with masterminding a long-running Ponzi scheme later estimated to involve around $65 billion, making it one of the biggest investment frauds in Wall Street history. Madoff, who was born in Queens, New York, in 1938, founded a small […]

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Citation Information

Article title
16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg named Time’s Person of the Year
Website Name
History
Date Accessed
March 25, 2025
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
January 31, 2025
Original Published Date
April 07, 2020

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