Corazon Aquino's Life in Photos

Corazon Aquino
DIANA WALKER / Time Life Pictures / Getty

Champion of Democracy
TIME chose Corazon Aquino as its Person of the Year for 1986, recognizing her central role in one of the most compelling dramas in recent history — the widowed housewife who avenges her husband's death by overthrowing the regime widely blamed for his murder. In February 1986, Aquino rose to the presidency of the Philippines after a popular uprising that forced Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos from power. She was the first woman to be designated TIME's Person of the Year since Queen Elizabeth II for 1952.

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