The Story Behind TIME’s 250th Anniversary of America Issue

The Empire State Building lit up in red, white, and blue —Gary Hershorn—Getty ImagesAt the beginning of 2026, to kick off this year’s celebration of the 250th birthday of the United States, we published a list of America’s Most Iconic Companies. Based on a national survey, conducted with our research partner Statista, we ranked companies—including Ford, Apple, the Walt Disney Co., and 247 more—not solely by their commercial success but by the vital role they’ve played in shaping culture and society.Read More: The Story Behind TIME’s Our America ProjectTIME belongs in that group. We regularly meet people for whom TIME has played a key role in their understanding of this nation—the aid worker in Rwanda who waited each week for TIME to be delivered by airplane; the entrepreneur who grew up in India reading her father’s copy each week, followed by a compulsory dinner-­table conversation—as well as so many living across the U.S. for whom TIME has offered access to the broader country and beyond. It was our co-founder Henry Luce who named the 20th century the “American century,” and, for 103 years now, TIME has been an essential part of the American character, a window for the world—and, for Americans, a view onto ourselves.Read More: How Shepard Fairey Created TIME’s ‘Our America’ CoverIn a recent piece for TIME, historian James T. Kloppenberg writes about the individuals who gave birth to this country: “They fought on behalf of ordinary citizens empowered, for the first time in modern history, to act on the…

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