German Chancellor Angela Merkel is Time Magazine's "Person of The Year."
CNN reports the 61-year-old German leader has won the title for her "steadfast moral leadership in a world where it is in short supply," wrote Time editor Nancy Gibbs.
Merkel topped the magazine's list followed by Islamic State leader Abi Bakr al-Baghdadi (2nd place), US presidential candidate Donald Trump (3rd place), activist group Black Lives Matter (4th place), Iran President Hassan Rouhani (5th place), American entrepreneur Travis Kalanick (6th place), and transgender Olympian Caitlyn Jenner (7th place).
"For asking more of her country than most politicians would dare, for standing firm against tyranny as well as expedience and for providing steadfast moral leadership in a world where it is in short supply, Angela Merkel is 'Time's Person of the Year'," Gibbs wrote.
Citing Merkel's contribution in the refugee crisis in Europe, the economic meltdown of Greece, and the Paris Terror attacks, Gibbs added, "Each time Merkel stepped in. Germany would bail Greece out, on her strict terms. It would welcome refugees as casualties of radical Islamist savagery, not carriers of it"
"And it would deploy troops abroad in the fight against ISIS [Islamic State]. You can agree with her or not, but she is not taking the easy road. Leaders are tested only when people don't want to follow," she added, noting Russian President Vladimir Putin's "creeping theft of Ukraine."
Merkel joins the magazine's diverse list of influential winners including German dictator Adolf Hitler (1938), Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin (1943), Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi (1930), and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1941).
Germany's most powerful person is only the fourth woman since 1927 to be named as an individual winner after American socialite and wife of King Edward VIII, Wallis Simpson (1936), longest-reigning British Monarch Queen Elizabeth II (1952) and former president of the Philippines Corazon Aquino (1986).
