Time magazine has just named their Person of the Year, and it's not surprising that President-elect Barack Obama takes the prize, after becoming the first African-American to win the oval office.

The magazine's managing editor, Rick Stengel, made the announcement during Wednesday's "Today" show.

"He hit the American scene like a thunderclap, upended our politics, shattered decades of conventional wisdom and overcame centuries of the social pecking order," Time reports in its cover story.

If Time wasn't enough, Obama graced enough covers this year to make him a certified celeb -- including Vibe, Rolling Stone, The Source, and Wired, among others.

As Time puts it, it's not surprising.

"It's unlikely that you were surprised to see Obama's face on the cover," the report read. "He has come to dominate the public sphere so completely that it beggars belief to recall that half the people in America had never heard of him two years ago.

"In one of the craziest elections in American history, he overcame a lack of experience, a funny name, two candidates who are political institutions and the racial divide to become the 44th president of the United States," the story later reads.

The runners up were U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and Chinese director Zhang Yimou, the man behind the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony.

Read the magazine's full coverage at Time.com.